Pippa takes the position that: pastry gun pointing at a child's classmates is immoral.
This has a number of assumptions, some of which she expounds upon. 1. school shooting is an "epidemic" 2. children who respect the rules of gun safety wouldn't take such an action. 3. it's indicative of an otherwise antisocial personality to do such an action
Half assed refutation of 1. There were 46 school shootings in 2022*1 where 34 students and adults died*2
https://archive.ph/8b4nG *1
https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/gun-violence/facts-about-gun-violence-and-school-shootings/ *2
There are about 50 million students in school in the united states. *3
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 *3
An epidemic is defined by merriam-webster as: "affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time"
34/50,000,000 is not an epidemic by definition.
of assumption 2. the popularity of childhood games such as cops and robbers or cowboys and indians which commonly include pretend firearms and killing easily disproves this. it stands to reason that many of the children who play these games are also aware of the rules of gun safety. the idea of make believe or "pretend" means these rules do apply and the children understand that it is still wrong to inflict real violence against their friends or classmates.
related to this is the prevalence to nerf guns which are used by youths to play and shoot at each other/pretend kill their friends/have wars. this may not be at school, but the moral doesn't necessarily change just because the venue changed. if schools allowed nerf guns you would likely see nerf battle at schools as well with the same proposed "disregard" to gun safety. A gun is a gun, a pastry gun is not a gun. It's the same sort of arguments for/against vermintide. A trans woman is not a woman and shouldn't be treated like a woman ect. How you treat a trans woman can not be indicative in how you treat women.
3. the united states has a culture that includes a heavy prevalence and usage of firearms. the mere action of eating a pastry in to the shape of the gun and "pew pew pewing" at at the students classmates does not indicate intrinsic antisocial personality. theres a leap of logic there. absent an expressed wish to be inflicting pain or death on their classmates through the metaphorical act.
there are a multitude of reasons that a child may have taken such an action, most involve some sort of play or make believe. it has not been proven that the child actually wished harm on his classmates. to immediately assume the child is deranged for what is likely play (based on 2) is not logical.
THE KID DINDU NUFFIN PIPPA