They started out as just a "family game."  Loving Mom and Dad with Johnny and Susie in the back yard playing this game of skill.  The jarts, "basically metal missiles," were prettified with colorful plastic fins on the back.  The object was to toss the jarts into a plastic ring set out on the lawn a few hundred feet away.  How fun!  What could go wrong?

Well, kids will be kids and what kid does't want to hurl a metal spear at their bully neighbor or pestering sibling?  And they did.  These toys, um, er I mean weapons, were the cause of numerous backyard injuries and even deaths.  In April of 1987 when seven year old Michelle Snow was killed by a thrown jart in Riverside, California that was the last straw.

After the little girl's death the Consumer Protection Agency issued a federal ban on the manufacturing of Jarts.  No more.  After 6,500 emergency room visits and several documented deaths, the game was no more.  You can still by a Jarts set online or from an overseas company but you risk arrest and fines if you are caught possessing one of these game sets.

"Jarts" the "family missile game" soon became known as "The Game of Death" and vanished from the markets.

Did you play Jarts when you were a kid?

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