![]() Former NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson created the Super Soaker, which he first called Power Drencher, in the 1980s. The Super Soaker celebrates black excellence and serves as inspiration for children of color, because it was invented by a black man, he said. (Courtesy of Gabriel Nyantakyi) Celebrating black scientist’s creationīut Nyantakyi said his crusade has benefits that surpass spreading joy. But it has a bad side to it, because we don’t want this to be the new normal.” Water fight at a middle school in Batman, Turkey. Sensitivity has been heightened in our schools, and that may be a good thing. When it’s used in context of a school, though, there is a little more of a gray area there. “Why not run and play (with a water gun)? In general, outside the school setting, I don’t see any significant problem. “I can see that they’re fun, especially in the warm weather,” he said. “I got in trouble when I brought a squirt gun to my high school on the last day of school,” he laughed. Still, Moore, 67, has many fond memories of playing with a water gun during his childhood in West Lafayette, Indiana. ![]() Robert Moore is the executive director of the Princeton, New Jersey-based Coalition for Peace Action. “You have to think of the various ways that people might encounter this, especially in a school setting where large numbers of youngsters have been killed.” Rev. Robert Moore, executive director of the Princeton, New Jersey-based Coalition for Peace Action. “You don’t want to be encouraging belligerent play between young people, and things that actually shoot projectiles could do that,” said the Rev. And some schools are cracking down on a popular “assassin game,” in which kids use Nerf or other fake and water guns to attack each other. In Ridgewood, New Jersey, school officials have encouraged students to quit playing an annual “Dart Wars,” a months-long battle in which students ambush one another with Nerf guns around town. Since Parkland, Walmart announced it plans to end sales of Airsoft and toy guns that resemble assault-style rifles. Lately, some worry that even a fake gun can create panic or be misconstrued in today’s climate. With the slaughter in Parkland still a fresh wound, not everyone shares his optimistic zeal.įake guns have been a serious concern among gun-control activists since at least November 2014, when police in Cleveland gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice as he played in a park with an Airsoft pellet gun. Nyantakyi also aims to organize a youth workshop exploring the scientific principles behind Super Soakers’ technology and encouraging participants to design their own water arms. It’s small, but it’s something within my means to do. But “you can take negative behaviors and link it to something positive and harmless as a way of a therapy. ![]() “Guns have proliferated in the area and the culture so much, it’s become normalized, and people have become so numb and desensitized to gun violence,” Nyantakyi said. He sees his crusade as a sort of psychological sublimation in a gun-obsessed country. There’s a poetry there, a message of hope, that I wanted to share.” Gabriel Nyantakyi has a water fight with children in Accra Ghana in 2015. “It’s a gun that shoots water, the thing that’s the essence of life. “This is a gun that the whole purpose is to have fun, and the outcomes are wholly positive,” said Nyantakyi, 35, who works as a handyman, dance and archery instructor, and driver for the nonprofit Food Connect. Brightly colored, unrealistic-looking Super Soakers have a “metaphorical power” that he hopes can mitigate the damage real guns have done to many neighborhoods, especially in inner cities, he said. The idea, besides bringing kids joy, is to redefine guns at a time when shootings dominate the headlines, he said. Water fight with children on the Southside of Chicago in 2017. Now, he’s raising money again to expand his effort - called Waterarms Over Firearms - in Philly and Chicago, two cities plagued by gun violence. “I have some keepers, because I want to play too!” he laughed. Several years ago, he began giving Super Soakers out to everyone from kids in his own hardscrabble neighborhood to young Syrian refugees and other children he encountered during his travels in Iraq, Ghana and Turkey. The West Philadelphia man found so much joy in water guns as a child that he became an avid collector - and even has a Super Soaker tattooed on his stomach. Gabriel Nyantakyi is besotted with Super Soakers. ![]()
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