Being Cautious About Unintentional Consequences Is Always Wise

Today one of the Doctor Who fan pages posted:

The Doctor’s trusty sonic screwdriver has been redesigned to resemble a remote control or a flip phone because Davies was worried that the old Sonic looked too much like a gun, potentially encouraging kids to pretend to shoot at one another.

Many of the comments were some flavor of that is silly to worry about or what is Davies thinking but as I posted:

While I don't think there was any need to change the design, as an American fan of Doctor Who I recognize that being on Disney means more Americans will get to see Doctor Who and here in America we have had too many tragedies where people were killed because their hairbrush, candy bar, wallet, or obviously fake nerf gun were confused with real guns, and that is not even taking in account news stories like today a 3 year old who shot themselves in the foot with their parents gun. So while not needed I am glad Russell T Davies is thinking about the completely unintentional possible consequences of Doctor Who reaching more people.

So in response to the commentors who seem grumpy that Davies was worried about this, each of The Doctors has ended up with a different design for their sonic. This is just a slightly bigger shift than typical, and especially when considering Americans and guns, it is always better to be safe than to be sorry. Being concerned with unintentional possible consequences is rarely a bad idea.

Do I think the classic sonic design was an issue? Probably Not  

Do I think there is any harm in changing the design? Nope

Do I think anyone can be too careful when it comes to media and guns? No.