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Comment by scheeseman486 | Hacker News Reader

Should lawn darts be illegal? There's a good argument to say it shouldn't be sold as a toy for children, but in terms of it's danger to the public there's a whole host of adult activities that cause considerably more capacity for harm that are considered acceptable and legal.

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My family plays horseshoes. 16 oz metal ‘U’ shapes being tossed through the air while drinking beer. One could argue that the problem with lawn darts was that they were too light, allowing children without proper sense to throw them too far.

Lawn darts used to be sharp and had fins. A horseshoe is blunt

so what? for one thing, children can legally play with (though not necessarily "own") guns, bows, model rockets, etc in most states. those all seem as dangerous, if not more so, than lawn darts.

I don't think children should be going anywhere near such things without adult supervision, but completely banning sale seems like a wildly disproportionate response.

The lawn darts were sharp and a bit hard to control. Basically like throwing a giant knife up in the air. Guns and bows have fairly well established training and safety regimes (i.e don't point them at someone), and model rockets get ignited 30' away

But throwing a dart high in the air and hitting a wandering 2 year old actually did happen, and there was no real attempt to only their the darts in one direction

I haven't touched a lawn dart since 1989.

I was a nine years old and I tossed it as high and as far as I could. I realized it was coming dangerously close to a friend. Everybody had their backs to me. I yelled, but nobody heard me.

In my memory it landed inches from them, but that could be because I was young and scared shitless. Maybe it landed fifteen feet behind them. All I know is it scared me enough that I have never touched a lawn dart after that.

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