Toy Manufacturers of America, the industry's trade group, may draft regulations governing development and sale of products with violence themes, but the group's officers and toymakers themselves deny industry responsibility for youth violence. But it is an industry-wide problem. MacIntyre, who participated in meetings between Congress and entertainment executives on reducing children's exposure to violence, told toymakers the entertainment industry waited too long to act and was left to the mercy of grandstanding politicians. While codes of ethics and non-violent product lines make good press for the toy industry, some doubt such changes will do reduce the amount of violence in society. If you remove toy guns completely, you still won't be successful, because guns are a fetish in American culture.
Guns are a totem of power for the powerless in our society, a way of solving problems.
Dorothy Singer, co-director of Yale University Family Research Center, agreed. Play itself is a kind of time-out from the real world. It has its own rules and its own logic. Goldstein noted that children learn interaction skills through aggressive play.