Offroad-Express

National Story - NZ HErald

Toy guns have to go
5:00AM Sunday August 03, 2008
By Anna Rushworth

Education chiefs have come under fire for banning children playing with toy wooden guns at a small country school.

Hampden School in Otago allowed some of its male pupils to play with home-made firearms during supervised pig-hunting games in the school's grounds once a week.

But after a story about the activities appeared in the Oamaru Mail, principal John Laing received a call from the Education Ministry saying the activity had to end.

Board of trustees chairman Ian Carter said the ministry should make an exception for their children because of the 21-pupil school's rural setting. He said Hampden, a coastal town with about 400 residents, was a "hunter's and fisherman's paradise".

The school had taken a "boys-being-boys approach" because several pupils used real guns on weekend pig-hunting trips with their parents. He said the school was reviewing the use of "homemade, hand-crafted toy guns" but would talk to the ministry.

"We are not comfortable they made a call without consulting us," said Carter. "We are not bringing M16s into the classroom and having commando-like activity."

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The games were introduced at last term after the board re-thought the games the school's pupils were allowed to play.

Laing told the Oamaru Mail there was growing evidence to suggest banning "rough- and-tumble" games was not in boys' best interests.

Mayor Alex Familton backed the school, saying it had a strong, capable and well-directed board of trustees.

"I think it's very unfortunate that the ministry are focusing on what is a trivial detail," Familton said.

Education Ministry southern regional manager Michael De'Ath said the ministry did not support children bringing toy guns to school.

But he said Hampden School was responsible for the day-to-day management of curriculum and play.

"We will continue to work closely with the school to ensure it meets its obligations of providing a safe physical and emotional environment for all students."

wish we coulda had games like that when i was at schook

We used to build wooden guns at school with the wood working tools and play war and cowboys and indians at every opportunity and we were never discouraged.

They are continuing to water us down into a nation of nancys who cry if we get our knees dirty and then its someone elses fault we got our knees dirty and we need to sue them because we need to be compensated for the emotional damage we suffered because someone laughed at our dirty knees

A nation of nancys we have become

Yep what a joke but what do you expect when have woman, sorry wo,maaaan as the prime minister. If I ever get voted as PM the first thing I will do is bring back ball tag, bullrush and then maybe we might win a world cup

they should teach gun safety at schools.....................

better then a kid finding a rifle in a cubhoard one day and being curious.
but hey ban every fawkin thing instead and see what happens.......
one day people finally get fed up and break

tpft wrote:they should teach gun safety at schools.....................

better then a kid finding a rifle in a cubhoard one day and being curious.
but hey ban every fawkin thing instead and see what happens.......
one day people finally get fed up and break

YUP!!!
you are exactly right, teach good gun handling while they is kids.

as far as banning guns........

"When guns are criminalized, only the criminals have guns"

That way, lies anarchy and chaos.

As Charlton Heston said "They can take my guns when they pull them from my cold dead hands" (something like that anyway)

Okay it has lost a little of the zing now he has cold hands but the sentiment lives on.