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 LEGO movie character with gun (not seen in the movie) (courtesy 2paragraphs.com)

“Another change in the Lego landscape is the weaponry,” Mary Fichter writes in her second paragraph at 2paragraphs.com. “Popular packages like the Star Wars Republic Gunship and DC Universe Super Heroes’ Battle of Smallville  include missiles, pistols, and weapons racks. And peacenik parents who would never buy a GI Joe figure (deeming a soldier with bayonet and gun too violent–or realistic) strangely don’t blink when Lego instructs their children to place a blaster rifle in the hands of a Clone Trooper.” Fichter calls for a gun buyback for kids. JK. But such things do exist. Anyway, Fichter reckons that “’The Lego Movie’ doesn’t include guns.” I don’t think we watched the same movie. Anyway, the LEGO Movie producer is sensitive to Ms. Fichter’s complaints. To a point. “‘We studied a lot about what parents would be comfortable with,” says producer Dan Lin. “But that doesn’t stop Lego from manufacturing and selling miniature plastic arms for children to play with,” Ms. Fichter responds. Huh? How are LEGO figures supposed to look realistic without minature plastic arms? Then again what do I know? I’m from the brick block era.

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75 COMMENTS

    • I have some sets (or at least they are somewhere at my parent’s house) from the 80’s that had swords, muskets, pistols, rifles, revolvers, and cannons. The blaster rifles didn’t come around until around 1999 to 2001 when LEGO started licensing movie figures.

    • I remember guns in Legos starting to become a thing when they introduced the pirate Lego sets. My dudes had flintlocks and muskets.

      Then when the Old West thing started they had revolvers and rifles. Good times!

  5. But a “Super Secret Police Enforcer” simply must have a gun. How can he confiscate unregistered assult weapons in CT without one?

  10. “Finally we have reached total political correctness in childrens’ toys. Introducing the only government approved toy: Ball in a Cup.”

  11. Lego has always been very pacifist, however, certain themes have included time appropriate weapons (muskets, swords, lever action rifles for the Wild West theme, etc). They never really include “weapons of war” if you want realistic military themes you need to go third-party.This is largely due to their Danish roots and the culture the company tries to foster. Lego is a contraction of “play well” in Danish.
    Here’s Lego’s Weapons/war policy (PDF Warning!)
    http://cache.lego.com/r/aboutus/-/media/About%20Us/Sustainability/ts.20120111T135744.Guidelines%20for%20weapon%20and%20conflict%20in%20LEGO%20experiences.pdf

    • So, that Lego Death Star with lasers and Stormtroopers, or the Star Destroyer are not a weapons of war?

      Or the Lego Bounty Hunter Assault Gunship? How about the Lego Movie Ice Cream machine, which sounds innocent except you can “Jump into the cockpit, soar into the sky and target the robot with the adjustable giant cone gun on the roof and wing-mounted flick missiles.”
      http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00GSPFD08/ref=mw_dp_mdsc?dsc=1

      I feel so much better no realistic weapons of actual war, just pretend futuristic ones.

    • Cus the Danes have this long history of hugs, sunshine and roses. Except for the Vikings and such.

      As household with estimated 2million lego blocks it is well established that ALL Legos are components of Starwars base camp/weapons/ships. Pirate cannon, pink thing, cop car, fire truck, etc ALL are stealth weaponry,

  12. We are raising a new generation of emasculated pantywaists, strung out on psychoactive drugs so they won’t act like boys.

    It’s getting hard to tell the difference between gun-haters and man-haters. Maybe there isn’t any.

    • Well, there are a lot of anti-freedom groups that throw out “misogyny” like it’s the word of the day. And generally, when someone makes a baseless accusation….

    • The overlap is rather significant, I’ve found.

      When the Obama campaign put out that “Life of Julia” cartoon progression, it wasn’t because they were marketing to a small audience.

      • I read a good article on that, basicly saying that another reason they focused on women with the life of Julia, was that if you reminded men they relied on that level of assistance they would get pissed and feel like they need to be doing more for themselves.

        • When I lost my job, I was on unemployment for a while. I made enough money “here and there” to kill my eligibility. However, I still made little enough that I qualified for public assistance. I couldn’t do it. I slashed my expenditures and made sure my dog had food, and then I just made it work. It wasn’t fun, but I survived.

    • What do you expect…?

      They’re being raised by the old generation of emasculated pantywaists that were strung out on psychoactive drugs.

  14. No big deal, before ya know it the kid will be a teen and into call of duty or the newest iteration thereof, and the only guns will be on the computer screen. Problem solved.

  15. For reasons that aren’t clear, this makes me want to go to Cabelas at once and get a Mossberg 500 Persuader with attached tac light. I suspect subliminal marketing at work.

  17. Lego can’t stop producing miniature plastic arms! How will the miniature plastic people hold onto their miniature plastic doodads if they don’t have arms?

  18. Just got back from a week in hell. That is to say, Walt Disney World. I remember as a kid (1980s) on the jungle boat ride, a (fake) hippo jumped out of the water and the tour guide pulled a previously concealed (fake) pistol and shot the hippo. In the 2014 version, the tour guide has no gun and the boat just speeds away.

    • On the Safari: never attempt to feed the animals. They are wild creatures with natural diets and should not be made dependent on handouts.

      This sign should be posted on every billboard in America.

    • Being a Florida native/child of Disney, now 38, I completely remember that. It sat in a special holster up by the fake steering wheel. Used it on the hippos and the attacking pygmies. It was a small cap revolver on a lanyard. Guess the bang-pop of it made too many people nervous. Maybe it was all those days at Disney with that ride that made me a PotG?

      • What’s weird is that the Jungle Cruise over at Disneyland in CA still has fake pistols that the skippers shoot. You would think it would be the other way around with the FL park.

  19. blah blah blah guns bad but I dont know why

    I think I got it, but just in case… tell me the whole thing again, I wasn’t listening.

    • It was something he made himself, I believe. You know: a sort of gun looking thing that marked an obviously damaged young mind.

  22. I have to say I saw the new Lego movie in 3D with my 6 year old son. They were not shy about guns in the movie or shoot outs. Helicopters with dillon machine guns chasing the main characters. Full on gun battle at the end that reminded me of the Matrix Revolution Zoin battle. The only part that made me raise and eyebrow was when the bad guy chopped off Vitruvius head (character with voice of Morgan Freeman and looks like Moses). The severed head then rolls to Emmet feet then starts talking to him. But I don’t think my son even noticed because that is what Lego mini figures do. You pop the head off and put it on a different body all the time. Many of his Lego sets have missiles that shoot off because that is what boys are in too. I guess that goes for BIG boys too.

  25. For those that haven’t seen the movie, the main bad guy’s
    name is Business, literally. Business seeks to order
    everything and actively stifles creativity. Personally, I find
    this nefarious subtext (though a rather blatant and obvious
    one) far more troubling than lego gun use. While some,
    including many here, are concerned with mocking/dispelling
    the hoplaphobia; our efforts could be better spent loudly
    asking why “Business” is portrayed as the evildoer and one
    enforcing rules/laws and conformity.

    • Because big business often pulls the government’s puppet strings. Many of the worst gun control supporters are big businesses that want their worker bees kept in line as much a the government does.

      • A) There is rarely, if ever, distinction between business
        and big business. So who exactly falls into the category?
        B) Every major manufacturer is arguably big business.
        Your argument fits precisely with the antis narrative
        that manufacturers buy off votes in order to
        continue peddling ‘weapons of death’.

  27. But this isn’t even a new thing.
    I remember my Indiana Jones knockoff lego set from Legoland that came with a blunderbuss and a pistol and everything. These are the same kinds of people who stop a bus and suspend a kid for having an 8mm long lego gun.

  28. I have been a fan of LEGO since I was a child in the 80s.

    There have been guns with the mini-figs as their referred too since 1980s, if not earlier with the other figurines they used to have.

    I have ‘Space’ sets, I have Cowboy sets, I have ‘Castle’ sets and while they didn’t have guns they had swords and axes.

    Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot and doesn’t know a thing about LEGO.

  29. It makes me wonder what she would say about the literal cold war and massive arms races my friend and I fought against one another from the ages of 8-12…

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