Ok, so the title may have been slightly misleading, but bare with me.

I was recently taken hostage by Nerf and am now unable to escape their fortress of adventure and fun, buying several Nerf guns and modifying them accordingly. I have noticed that a lot of people take them very seriously, starting competitions, creating customs parts (aluminum plungers to avoid breakage etc), spending a lot of time on custom paint jobs and modifications and then selling them (even taking contracts) and now Nerf run tournaments and have a game out. It hit me that Nerf do very well at making guns from plastic to shoot foam darts, but how would they fair at creating REAL guns?

Firstly, if Nerf did make real guns they would most likely be laughed at in the beginning, but their revolutionary designs and possibly fantastic craftsmanship and gun building may well make them a genuine weapons manufacturer with an existing market that may grow up with the plastic guns only to buy the real killers later on.

Taking this into your thoughts, would it be unethical, in your opinion, or even a poor business move for Nerf to make real guns?

I'm thinking yes and no. Of course the guns they currently produce are made with fun in mind, usually aimed at those who are of the 'newer' generations of humans, but would they not be better off completely cornering off the market by hooking them as children and keeping them as adults who carry around futuristic weapons of cool?

I don't know if I should choose an answer, it's pretty obvious though when you get real. ^_^'

You don't know if you should have an opinion?

How would it be unethical, yes guns are used to kill people but I hardly think it unethical to expand your market and experiment with new merchandise. It's not like they will sell weapons to children.

Why would a toy company go from making a lot of money selling toy guns to having to take people threw the testing a certification of buying real guns. Last time I heard you have to take a class and pass it before buying a gun. If Nerf did so I am sure parents won't see nerf as a toy company that sells guns anymore and would lose money.

It could be deemed unethical as Nerf would embed the idea that Nerf guns are fun as they are children and young adults and then when they are older the nostalgia and the good memories from when they are children may cause them to buy Nerf's real guns.

It could be seen as exploiting them, like getting kids hooked on cigarettes at a young age.

Children probably won't be aware that they make real guns, if they were to advertise weapons it's not like they would say " Buy the super awesome BRAIN SPLATTERERERER now with optional GRENADE LAUNCHER ATTACHMENT * pew pew kablow* " Their adverts would be targetted towards adults and I think they would try to not make it appeal to children. If weaponry is advertised at all

Also when people are old enough to purchase firearms I think they would think rationally before using them in the wrong way. I also don't think that our minds will associate the toy with the weapon at all, i mean they probably wont sell weapons with 6 barrels or some crazy look, and they wont have their stand nerf label either, probably.

Going from Nerf guns to real guns is a pretty ridiculous industry switch. The technological know-how and the manufacturing equipment required are completely different. It's foolish to think that just because they can make interesting soft-foam projectile launchers that they will have "revolutionary designs" and "fantastic craftsmanship" when they make real firearms.

I don't see that ethics enters into the equation, unless we're supposing that they'd make colorful ridiculous looking guns with smiley faces on them to entice youngsters.... which actually would just be a stupid business move, not an unethical one. If they tried to manufacture real guns in a serious manner, they'd probably want to switch the brand name. You want to have a gun with a powerful sounding name and reputation (glock, colt, remington) not a gun made by toymakers.

Well, if Nerf made their guns "real", this would most likely create a downside to their "toy gun" profits. Currently, they are one of the most successful toy gun productions in America. If they add real, intentional violence to their production, they may be taking it a step too far. After all, Nerf is mostly for teenagers, maybe kids.

If it happened it would have me giggling like a bitch, Nerf making real guns? I couldn't deal with it. it just seems too weird, although if they did revolutionize weapons would that be good or bad?