A short item in this newspaper on Saturday (August 29) reminded one and all that at times hazards may be associated with toys. The report said that toy lasers were being recalled by the Malta Standards Authority because they might be harmful if pointed at the eye. The lasers could also produce electric shocks, the report said.
The authority has instructed retailers to remove such toys from their shelves immediately, as they would otherwise be confiscated. The authority also said that consumers who owned any toy lasers should return them to the shop they bought them from.
The latter part of the standard authority's statement is perhaps the most important. Toy lasers are quite popular with children. They are unlikely to read the warning of the authority. It is parents who have to act.
From a business standpoint it is incumbent on whoever imports such lasers to trace every retailer to whom they were distributed, to urge them in turn to attempt to trace shoppers who bought from them.
Such warnings are not uncommon. It was only a few months ago that a major toy producer in China had to recall a massive amount of toys from the international market because they could be dangerous to users. This sort of thing happens all the time. It is inherent in the production business.
It is not related solely to toys. Baby cots used to carry unexpected dangers. So did clothes. Nowadays standards imposed by reputable distributors and retailer chains on their suppliers are stricter than ever. Yet, there will be negative developments, at times due to deliberate scrimping on the checking processes by producers, at others to negligence.
Ironically, there are other wider dangers which are known to everybody, from producers to parents, which are allowed to prevail with impunity to anyone involved the process. I am referring to the huge toy industry based on the production, distribution and selling of toy guns and other weaponry.
Guns is a generic word, covering both pistols and rifles as well as toys based on so-called weaponry seen in science fiction films and in cartoons whose only purpose seems to be to immunise children to violence.
One comes across all sorts of toy guns, from cheap ones to be found in stalls set up in village feasts and around here and there all the time during the year, to sophisticated models which cost quite a lot.
They are used all over the place, not least in the home where brothers and sisters are shooting at and "killing" each other all the time. Out for a pizza at a popular place largely off the tourist trail the other day, I was astonished to see a three-year-old boy carrying a toy shotgun and running all over the place, bam-bamming everybody in sight.
He likes it, simpered his mother proudly when she saw me looking at the child. The boy rushed back, bam-bammed my table in one swing, rushed back to his mum, gave her the toy shotgun to hold and without pausing for breath drew a matching toy pistol from her copious bag.
Proud Mum's approving grin widened as the boy grabbed the shotgun from her hands and starting running about, this time bam-bamming away with both toy weapons.
I am not a psychologist and I will not presume to describe in detail the effect of toy weapons on the consciousness and formation of the young. I do know that I don't like it, for some unidentified harm must be done.
There was a time when this was stopped. In the mid-1980s, when I was the minister responsible for trade, I prohibited the importation and distribution of toy weaponry. It was not a popular move. Some toy importers howled in protest, to the same extent as other importers hampered in their trade by other import restrictions intended to protect local industry.
My measure was one of protection too, but not of any local producer. There were none. I wanted to protect children from the bad influence I believe toy guns have on them. Granted, they could be similarly influenced by watching cartoons and films which uncaring or unmindful parents allow them to view.
But at least, I tried to do my bit by not allowing toy imports in. The Labour government was thrown out in May 1987, to the relief of many voters, and not without having earned that defeat with some compound interest to spare.
The new Nationalist Administration quickly set about liberalising imports, and many felt it was about time too, since restrictions had reached ridiculous proportions. In no time at all, toy importation, which had been free other the restriction I personally had imposed on toy weapons, was duly tackled.
Importers began bringing in toy weapons with gusto. Shotguns, rifles, pistols, tanks, bazookas, you name it, they delivered it.
All of the range is available and more is added to it regularly especially around Christmas, when we pray for peace on earth. No warnings were issued then. None are now.