(continued)

So the parents felt that the dangers were "obvious" enough to collect a $14 million dollar jackpot, yet they themselves weren't smart enough to recognize the "obvious" dangers?

THEY bought the toy.

THEY apparently never examined it to see if it was dangerous.

THEY obviously knew about the projectile and its dimensions.

THEY allowed their kid to continue playing with the thing.

THEY never taught their kid not to shoot things down his throat.

And they are considered fit parents worthy of instant riches because... ? Any other kids should have been removed from that household immediately.

First off, great article! I saw this and had to comment from personal experience.

I ate one of these BSG Missiles (Fired in my mouth from point blank range) the same night the news released the story about the kid who died, but they never said he choked on it, they said "Ingested" so I thought it was poison (I was ten years old.), so for three days I was freaking out thinking a six inch Colonial Viper had attributed to my imminent demise.

Years later I was in the hospital with my father-in-law on New Years Day and a young boy was brought it with a G.I. Joe stuck in his nose (it was seriously lodged in there and took some doing getting him out of that adventure). Should the parents have measured the kid’s nostril passages fully extended before purchasing this toy? It's simply impossible to figure out what kids are going to do with something you buy them.

One other note of interest: 'Catch the Lawn Dart' was a popular game in my friend’s front lawn, by the time I was seven I knew all the doctors on a first name basis. I’m sure somewhere on the box the instructions of the game did not include: “Throw dart upwards towards the blinding sun and stand under it shouting ‘I got it!’”
At some point common sense needs to be emphasized by the parent to the child and hope the synapse makes the correct clicking noise.

http://www.badpuppet.blogspot.com

First thing, that was one of my best toys ever. I received those toys instead of StarWars toys and my first impression was that i was not lucky, since i knew that i can built different toys with all parts. And the big point: missiles launcher, yes it was real ! One night my mother said that a little boy died with that toy and it was said to return toys or missiles. I answered 'NO WAY I WILL KEEP IT ALL' then she said never put it in your mouth. I was near 10 and the younger in my family. So i played a long time ith without accident. Two years ago i put it into the trash, but was still functionnal but plastic was yellow and eurk ! So bad toys sometimes can be good ! Yvan

Wait, wait, wait. The parents of the child who shot himself in the mouth sued? Their kid was stupid enough to shot a missle in his mouth!

WOW!!! Someone sued a company because their child did something ridiculously idiotic with said company's product? That is shocking....

/sarcasm

I felt ripped off because I only had the "Scarab" as a kid (it also had the "safety missiles") while my friends and cousins had the Viper or Cylon Raider. But I do remember the controversy about choking - this was at the same time as Liquid Paper was banned in our school because of stupid kids killing themselves with that, too. Only takes one moron to ruin it for everybody.

Give me a break.