Darwin doesn’t work so well with lawn darts. Unfortunately, it’s the innocent babe behind the fence who’s going to get his skull crushed, not the dumbass who flings the jart into the air without looking where it’s going. Hence, the stupid survive and reproduce. 
After reading this thread, I went to Ebay and found Item #532497338, which is a mint condition set of Jarts. (Get them quick before some whiner gets them pulled.)
The banning of Jarts is just one more attempt of some prick to micro-manage my life and try to get me to live forever. (I guess I’m weird, I don’t desire immortallity.)
If someone throws a jart over a fence and kills a little kid, then the thrower is to blame and should be sent to prison or punished, not the manufacturer, the item was not used in it’s intended fashion.
How many people commit suicide by jumping from bridges and high buildings every year? Should we outlaw those too? How many people die from electrocution every year? Maybe electricity should be outlawed! How many people die because they were born? Should birth become a felony?
Sure it does (natural selection that is - - Darwin himself is probably a bit out of shape to toss a lawn dart). It just means that stupidity would be a successful trait. It’s an eliminating-the-competition kinda thing.
Please explain this game to me. I’ve heard about/read about it so many times yet NO ONE will explain it to me. either it’s “You’re too young”, that was 15+ years ago in scouts, or “No one plays it any more so why care” I don’t really want to play I just wnat to know what you’re supposed to do. Please Please Please tell me about it!
Products liability law in this country doesn’t work this way, Pudgy Dog. Manufacturers and sellers can be (and often should) be held responsible for foreseeable misuse of their products.
As an example, take the basic power saw. It’s not intended that the user slice his hand off while cutting a 2x4. But it’s perfectly foreseeable that Bubba won’t be paying attention 100% of the time, so the manufacturer has included safety guards to save his hand and a few million dollars in liability. Lawn darts couldn’t be made safer without also being made totally lame, so they were removed from the marketplace.
And without even getting into the risk/benefit analysis of bridges, skyscrapers, and lawn darts, you may also notice that lots of bridges and buildings these days have rails, fences, and other safety features designed specifically to prevent people from jumping.
And BTW, let me just say that I liked lawn darts as a kid, and would play with them again if I ever got the chance. But I agree with the OP that it was not very smart to give children a game that consisted of throwing sharp, heavy objects high into the air. If Milton Bradley’s new toy features lots of small, easily swallowed pieces, surely we’re not going to let the company walk away from responsibility when Junior, not using the toy in its intended fashion, chokes to death.
Oh, and Phobos, you’re absolutely right, of course. I was just (lamely) responding to the implication of a number of posters that only idiots got hurt by lawn darts.
Loved Jarts as a kid…
Also loved Mainway’s Bag '0 Glass too!
Oh yeah, and tossing 45 caliber bullets against a boulder.
And making home-made mololtov cocktails…
And standin so close to a freight train that you get spun by the train’s back draft…
And runnin like hell when the cops said freeze…
Best fun ever!
2 summers ago my friend and I found a set of Jarts at the local St. Vinnies. After a small scuffle, we got them up to the counter. The lady behind the desk threatened to call the police (these are ILLEGAL!). “Look, lady, you can take the 3(!) dollars or not, we’re out of here.” Another tussle in the parkinglot. Eventually, he got to keep them; I get to sleep with his next 3 girlfriends.
Ah, those summer afternoons with my cousins, tossing Jarts over my grandmother’s sister’s garage!
(Darwin obviously failed to take into consideration LUCK. Statistically, I should have been culled decades ago.)
Pudgy Dog, I’m with you.
Did you actually try to purchase these Jarts, or just see the listing? As I said before, I was looking for a spare set a while back, and every entry came back (when I tried to view them) with “Item is unavailable.” I took this to mean that eBay had taken them off their market after being pressured by negligent parents or something.
I was fairly fortunate; I think I only paid $20 or so, including shipping, for mine. (Sadly, the seller had left the $2 tag-sale price tag on it; I guess the value went up.)
From the CPSC web site, http://www.cpsc.gov:
I assume they mean 1986 (the year before this report was written), not 1936.
Also, although the CPSC had the power to ban the sale of lawn darts, any criminal penalties for their posession and use would surely have to be created by Congress or your state legislature. Unless somebody can point me to a statute, it’s probably a safe assumption that nobody’s going to jail for playing with them.
You’ll put your eye out, kid.
Actually, I think I made it clear from my original post that I only play with Mu kids.
AFAIK, MP is simply tossing a knife into the ground so that it sticks. Fun by yourself or with others (kinda like drinking that way!)
It is kind of like HORSE. If I toss the knife in a certain way and it sticks, you have to try to. I guess there are 2 basic kinds of tosses. In the first, you hold the knife handle in your primary hand, balance the knife point on a body part and then flip it so that it sticks. With the second kind, you balance the entire knife on your hand a certain way, and toss it a certain way so that it sticks. Say, the knife is lying flat on your palm, point away from you, and you flip it so it comes back towards you. I have to assume the variations are essentially endless.
If you wish, you can have a target, and the winner is the one whose knife sticks closest to the target. Gets more fun if you introduce feet near the target, preferably with shoes off!
Sometimes we go through a series of throws, with the first person done the winner. Say, you have to flip it off the fingertips and knuckes of each finger on your left hand, then your elbow, your knee, and your chin.
More often we just have fun messing around with knives in the dirt.
Not aware of any governing, rule-issuing organization.
Need I say Mrs D is not a big fan of this game?
minty green quoted this article earlier. It includes the statistic that an estimated 6100 injuries were caused by lawn darts over a nine year period. Big deal! There were about 2000 people struck by lightning during that same peiod. So, in the early eigthies you were three times as likely to get struck by a lawn jart as lightning, but neither event was terribly likely.
Also in that article is this little fact:
Am I reading this correctly? Does this say that there have only been two lawn dart fatalities ever?
Lawn darts just don’t seem that dangerous. I’ll try to look up how many bicycle injuries and fatalities there were during that same time frame. I’ll bet that bicycles cause a lot more injuries.
Huh. Not to hijack this completely, but my belief was that mumblety peg was played as follows:
Stretch your left hand out over a surface you don’t care about damaging. With your right hand, pick up a knife (preferably, a switchblade for atmosphere) and stab it just to the left of your pinkie. Then pull the knife out and stab it between your pinkie and ring finger. Then between ring finger and middle finger. So on and so forth until you stab just to the right of your thumb, then do it in reverse, going back and forth, increasing speed until you finally slip/misjudge and actually cut or impale a finger.
Whomever can do this the longest and/or fastest is considered “cool”. And occasionally called “Righty”.
Lance, my only point in posting the data was that lawn darts were far from harmless. I never claimed they were threatening the Republic. We can debate the social utility of toys versus bicycles all you want in another forum. Again, I like lawn darts. But I also like a lot of other things that ought not to be in the hands of children.
The only name I ever heard for this game is Chop Suey.
Much as it pains me to express anything but the utmost respect for our esteemed mods, You’re so wrong, boy! (But damned good looking, I must add.)
We played that (ahem) game you describe as youths, but it definitely is NOT mumblety peg. Got it? Do I have to dig up a cite and smack you upside the head wit it?
Ah, brings back memories of halcyon days combining darts and ping pong in the basement. Run around the ping pong table, throwing darts at each other and trying to catch them on the paddles. Or put one dart in the middle of the table, one person has to grab it, while the others throw darts at his hand. Or more simple, play straight darts, but the person who isn’t throwing stands next to the dart board and grabs the incoming darts out of the air. Good clean fun. Nothing that a tetanus shot can’t cure.
Dinsdale, you’re right. I didn’t think so, but you are. I thought that the game that John Corrado described was it. I wonder what that’s called, then…
From the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary:
Main Entry: mum·ble·ty-peg
Pronunciation: 'm&m-b&l-(tE-)"peg, -blE-"peg
Variant(s): also mum·ble-the-peg /-b&l-([th]&-)"peg, -blE-"peg/; or mumble peg /-b&l-"peg, -blE-/
Function: noun
Etymology: from the phrase mumble the peg; from the loser’s originally having to pull out with his teeth a peg driven into the ground
Date: 1627
: a game in which the players try to flip a knife from various positions so that the blade will stick into the ground
I thought in mumblety peg you threw the knife between your feet (to stick in the ground) then move whatever foot was father away so that the knife was centered. Keep playing until you chicken out or hit your foot, not sure what the ultimate goal of this game was though.
nineiron:
No, I didn’t put in a bid on them. I just did a quick search to see what would pop up. (I think my mom still has a set of lawn darts in the storage shed so I don’t really need any.)
minty green:
One of the things one of my friends did when we were kids was to take a can of spray paint and use it as a flame throwers to melt some plastic army men. Since this stuff is flamable (known to the manufacturer and seller), should they have been held responsible if the can had exploded in his had? The answer is no. The item was not used for its labled purpose.
Being a heavy and pointed object meant to be thrown, lawn darts are not a childrens toy. A person using them should take precautions to make sure that no one is in the general area of the flight path of the object.
I wonder how many of the 4880 children injured by these items were unsupervised by mature adults. Like anything that could be construed as dangerous, it should only be used by people who are willing to take the extra effort to make sure no one will get hurt.
How many people are injured a year from bicycle accidents? How many are killed? Bicycles, roller skates, skate boards, and the scooters are dangerous, but the CPSC hasn’t worked to ban them. (I will have to find some statistics on those injuries.)
The saftey guards on a saw are a joke to begin with too. When using a saw, you need to pay 100% attention 100% of the time, whether the saftey gear is on or not. My boss almost lost two fingers and a thumb using a table saw because he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing. Yes, he had the saftey equipment in place and it didn’t work. Did he go out and get a lawyer to make a quick buck? No he didn’t, he made sure that everyone in the company learned form his experience so that it would minimize risk to others.
The idea that manufacturers and sellers should be held responsible for forseeable missuse of the items they sell is just a sign that the American people are only too happy to sue someone to get some money instead of working for it.
I bow to your superior opinion, Pudgy Dog. I now realize that lawn darts are perfectly harmless. Thank you for clearing things up. :rolleyes:
http://www.cpsc.gov/library/toy99.pdf
Tricycles and Riding toys were involved in 4 deaths in 1999.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/344.pdf
It is apparent that bicycles and riding toys cause more injuries and deaths every year than lawn darts did from their creation to their banning. Why do we allow children to play with such dangerous items? Should they be banned also?