From: bsackste@AFIT.AF.MIL (Bernadette M. Sacksteder)
Subject: Re: A Night in the Hills of West Virginia
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology, WPAFB OH
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 13:53:14 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.161638.28816@cs.yale.edu> lower-tony@CS.YALE.EDU (Tony Lower) writes:
>   "On another matter near and dear to my heart, I want to hear
>what people think on the issue of children and the sometimes
>violent games they play.  Particularly, a group of my friends
>and I often do sword-fighting with big-old padded thingys, and
>often get a large crowd of todays youth watching.  Are we being
>a terrible influence on the next generation (as we have been
>accused of being, mind you, several times already)??

The New Kid pipes up:
"I'd rather see two guys fencing and having fun than people yelling at each 
other out in their front yard. That's happened on my block a few times. I 
always wanted to learn how to fence, have my own sword, the whole bit. When 
I was a kid I and my brother and sisters would pick up big sticks and use 
them as swords (when we weren't pretending they were guns). Even now I and 
my little brother use peices of my even littler brother's play gym to fence 
with. It's good fun and good exercise and hasn't made either of us any more 
violent than we were already.

The biggest argument I've seen against all this not letting kids have play 
guns and things is my little three year old brother. My parents have never 
allowed a gun in the house. Even if something was used consistently by us 
kids as a pretend gun they got rid of it. They've never let us see 
excesively violent movies and taught us over and over again that we are not 
to even play like we're killing people, even if the people are imaginary. My 
little brother has been just as gaurded as the rest of us yet he, like we 
did, takes sticks, carrots, his hand, anything, and plays gunfighter with 
them. We did too. Once he even nibbled his graham cracker into the shape of 
a gun and shot me with it. Now if, with all the precautions my parents have 
taken, my little brother still does this, what can you do? Why not just give 
the kid a gun and have done? I mean, my parents won't even let us have water 
guns, and he still plays like this. What can you do?

The point is, don't worry about being a bad influence. I'd rather have my 
little brother watching two friends fencing with each and having fun than 
two people hurling filth at each other on their front porch. It just isn't 
the same. And if the kids want to be violent, they will be whether they see 
you or not. Ask the objectors whether they would stop the kids from watching 
football. That's easily twice as violent."

The New Kid suddenly notices that a soap box has appeared underneath her 
feet. She blushes and steps down, picking it up. "Where do these things go 
anyway?"
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Bernadette M. Sacksteder       Here comes your father!
Bsackste@afit.af.mil                -William Shakespeare
                                            Henry V
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You mean somebody actually CARES about my opinions?
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