Let The Knee-Jerking Begin

Beware Cartoon Guns

In the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shooting, Warner Brothers has announced it plans to "tone-down" the violence in the upcoming "Beware The Batman" cartoon.  According to Variety, "an unspecified number of alterations were made to some designs and situations on the series to minimize the amount of weapon imagery deemed too realistic." They plan to do things like make guns with square nozzles so they look more science fiction then realistic.  Yes, that's obviously the problem, cartoon guns.   Somewhere someone did statistics on the number of shootings caused by the guns being fired at Johny Quest and Haji.  It should go right up there with the stats on the number of mice who went after cats with frying pans after viewing a Tom & Jerry marathon.

It is inevitable that such a horrible tragedy such as the Aurora, Colorado shootings would spark a lot of conversations, some ranging from heart-felt grief to actual reporting of facts.  Others are completely stupid, such as the NRA and their legion of gun-nuts campaigning to put a gun in everyone's hands so everyone in the theater could get a chance to shoot, or the conspiracy theories with the government plan to have a complete nut job go and kill citizens so they can take guns from babies and people wearing Elmo costumes.  No reaction is more irksome then entertainment studio reactions to these things.  At least the NRA and conspiracy theorists are crazy - they have an excuse.   Studio reaction range from silly to just all out idiotic.  Changing guns in movies to walkie talkies or delaying shows with season finales that have some kind of gun play in them, or making cartoon guns fire lasers doesn't do anything but make a general audience go, "This is just. . .dumb."   It would be better of these studios would, oh let's say, donate money to the families to help defer funeral or medical costs - but this is said realizing we're talking about the same entity that will change guns in a cartoon while making a deal for eventual movie rights to the tragedy they claim forced them to change the gun in the first place.