Police SWAT Guns Facepalm...

[playmofire]

I do not quite get the difference of having sword, axe, bows and arrows, and cannons as oppose to cowboy revolvers, repeater rifles and the current small fire-arms, rifles and submachine guns?

They are all schedule weapons promoting violence aren't they?

I think Playmobil (and other people) draw a distinction between what might be called "historical violence" and "modern violence".  The latter is generally far more violent than the former and, of course, is more immediate.

BTW, Lego has the Starwars series and in that series they have laser blasters and photon cannons... Nevermind guns.



Playmobil not making toys with guns or whatnot isn't gonna make your environment a safer place is it?

They do make toys with guns, even in the modern series, e.g. all the police carry guns and there is now the SWAT team.  I don't think Playmobil take the view that by not making modern military figures they are making the world a safer place, it's just their policy. 

Playmobil is a business afterall and as consumers, we have a choice and if you do not agree with some of the themes because of your own believe. I am definitely sure that there are also plenty of wholesome themes.

I personally grew up playing plastic toys soldiers and army men from WWII (who didn't) and my earliest history lessons from my Dad about WWII came from those toys. Isn't it a little unfair to deprive the next generation the same toys and learning experience we had growing up? 

Playmobil as a business also have a choice and there choice is reflected in their products.  There are certainly consumers who will buy Playmobil because they do not produce modern military themes.  The fact that Playmobil doesn't produce modern military themes doesn't prevent parents buying Playmobil in some themes and otherr brands for the modern soldiers.

So just because I only started here not too long ago means my argument is automatically pointless and hence void?
Well, you may have six thousand more posts than I do but that does not say anything about your maturity does it?

For my part, I am only stating the view Playmobil has expressed in the past and I accept that your view is equally valid; the question of military toys is a personal one each person must decide.  I certainly played with lots of soldiers as a child, some of which had belonged to a cousin killed in WW 2.

In my view, whether you are a newbie or not doesn't invalidate your views, and (with all due respect to Giorginetto) I feel he has overstepped the line in his comments to you.

[Giorginetto]

I dont want to carry on with this as everyone is entitled to his/her option after all . as for the 'newbie' well it  wasnt my intention to cause any upset as it seems it has ....   

i agree with sir gordon above about old and new weapons , totally different. playmobil has taken a route with more violence portrayed in its toys with angry /evil  faces and automatic weapons. its simply not the toy it used to be but i think that has to do also with the new markets / customer profiles it is now targeting which is clearly different from what its taregt groups were in the 80s / 90s etc. For the worse if you ask me 

[PlayMoto]

I do not quite get the difference of having sword, axe, bows and arrows, and cannons as oppose to cowboy revolvers, repeater rifles and the current small fire-arms, rifles and submachine guns?
.......

very very well said. 

I agree, while the argument of no weapons is understandable, i do think it is very odd that western rifles, revolvers, canons etc. are no issue at all. Why is that ok, in view of violence and guns, but a bankrobber set or swat set with SMG's is wrong? 

[playmofire]

very very well said. 

I agree, while the argument of no weapons is understandable, i do think it is very odd that western rifles, revolvers, canons etc. are no issue at all. Why is that ok, in view of violence and guns, but a bankrobber set or swat set with SMG's is wrong? 

I think it is a fine point, but these have usually been set by Playmobil in an historical setting and for this reason have been acceptable.  As regards bank robbers and the SWAT set, personally I have no objection to these, they are a fact of life after all, although armed police are still seen as a bit unusual in the UK, especially by older folk, like me, and the idea of police being armed as a matter of course is still not accepted, either by the Bitish public or the police.

[Redmao]

That's why Playmobil is such a wonderful toy line.
The doors of imagination are wide opened and there's enough material and themes to please everybody.
It's easy to get what you like and it's also easy to avoid the themes or sets that you disapprove of.

As for the various new faces, I think it adds some flavor to our Playmo worlds. A frowning character doesn't have to be evil, he could simply be very serious or even be a grumpy comedy relief. Grumpy Smurf complained a lot, but he wasn't a bad guy.

For the new bank set, simply remove the pistol and the lady becomes a regular customer and that bank is a fantastic addition to Playmocity.

Like all the other toy lines, Playmobil has to evolve to survive. If you don't keep up with the children's taste than your line is doomed.
As collectors we like how things were when we were kids, but collectors alone are not enough to keep a toy line alive.

More on topic, the new SMG looks nice, but the side handle is weird.

[tahra]

I think it is a fine point, but these have usually been set by Playmobil in an historical setting and for this reason have been acceptable.  As regards bank robbers and the SWAT set, personally I have no objection to these, they are a fact of life after all, although armed police are still seen as a bit unusual in the UK, especially by older folk, like me, and the idea of police being armed as a matter of course is still not accepted, either by the Bitish public or the police.

I know what you mean - though our police have guns, we're not used at all to see machine guns about...

Saw some military/police guys with machine guns in Heathrow when we were returning from Axl - felt like asking them to take a pic with Boomer Click 

In Barcelona, there's police with machine guns all over the place! 

[larryhohoho]

Well, in Singapore, all Police are armed with handguns but I guess it is more of a deterring factor than anything else.
In fact, that is the Policing policy of many other countries as well.
I was in the Singapore Police Force for my *National Service and in the Academy, we were instilled with the "when the crime takes place, we have already failed..." mantra.

Honestly, the rules of engagement to even DRAW our sidearm is insane hence our weapon of choice is always the baton more than anything else.

I guess we have Al-Qaeda to thank for all these heightened sense of security especially in airports... I mean the World was never the same place after 911...

*its a mandatory obligation in Singapore to serve for 2.5 years either in the Armed Forces, Police Force or Civil Defence Force as a conscript and no, we don't get to choose which one...

Anyway, this is the reply I gotten from Sandra:

Hi Larry,
Thanks for your message!
Well, this is definitly something Anna and I didn't think about yet.
But of course we'll forward your feedback to our product managers and developers! They will be glad to hear your opinion about these sets.
 
Thanks again for your feedback!
 
Best regards,
Sandra | PCC team
 
From Larry Hohoho to PLAYMOBIL®
Sent yesterday

Dear Anna & Sandra,
I recently bought your fantastic Tactical Police car 5974 (States exclusive) online and also a box of SWAT Police 5186 to fill its empty seats.

However, I cannot help but realise that the new submachine gun handle is made in a really weird position... Which kinda makes the SWAT Police holding the gun look... Retarded... (Hahaha!)

Please don't get me wrong, I think that the mold of the new gun is superb compared to the alternative (the scoped pump-gun which kinda doesn't make much sense either cause you do not need a scope for a pump gun because it will never be pin-point accurate even with a scope).

Do assist me to feedback this to your design team and hopefully (although quite unlikely...) change this if possible.

Larry Hohoho
Singapore

[Rasputin]

I must say it is odd, understandable but still odd . Geobra makes the historic (up to the wild west) guns then for a brief time in history chose to skip everything, and then when you get to modern you have guns but when you get to the future you get laser guns and super modern weapons again. In the new space we even have lasers to blow up each others vehicles. The future seems to be  heavily influenced by violence 

I am more interested in the large hole that is left in the history of humanity than the weapons, after all if you look at all playmobil there are weapons in every theme pretty much, even where they never existed (prehistoric)

[Giorginetto]

Playmobil isnt what it started and aspired to be. I will never buy these sets 

[Wesley Myers]

I think there are temporal as well as ideological implications for the support (as well as opposition) to Playmobil's initial stance on not promoting violence.

Historical weapons are just that - something of the past and they are only made current through the use of imagination.  While current weapons are not historical in the sense of something from the past that can no longer hurt us. 

The concreteness of the weapons Playmobil has used in the past have been ones not of mass-destruction.  There is a huge tactical difference between a muzzle-loader and a fully automatic weapon with 30+ round clips that can be attached together.  It is exactly these weapons that have been used for mass-murder.  I would like someone to show me any 21st or 20th Century examples of mass murder using a muzzle loader or percussion cap, by the way.

Historically all people had open access to weapons depicted with Playmobil figures.  However, current political pressures have exempted the people from being allowed to possess weapons of mass-destruction (while limited exemptions of this do exist today, such as in Canada and to an extent the USA) generally it is only the authoritarian forces who are allowed possession of such weapons whereas the people are strictly denied access - so these weapons are also seen as instruments of terror, not utilitarian tools as their previously made weapons were (bows, guns, spears, daggers were used for essential and fundamental daily tasks such as hunting - swords were used for personal defence, and, like guns in the Western frontier they were a natural utilitarian part of society). 

While objects like catapults and siege towers are not everyday objects, there are not laws (that I know of) restricting their possession.  In fact, in Canada, there is no law regulating the possession of private artillery pieces - so yes, you can own/construct cannon.