Lawn darts had been banned from being sold in the United States for many years. The ban was challenged in court in the late 1970s, prompting the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make a compromise ruling allowing their sale provided they were not marketed as toys. However, in April 1987, seven-year-old Michelle Snow was killed by a lawn dart thrown by one of her brothers' playmates in the backyard of their home in Riverside, California, United States. The darts had been purchased, unintentionally, as part of a set of several different lawn games and were stored in the garage, never before having been played. Michelle's father, David, began a crusade to get lawn darts banned, claiming that there was no way to keep children from getting their hands on lawn darts short of a full ban.[1][2]

Due in part to Snow's lobbying, on December 19, 1988, the CPSC reinstated the outright ban on lawn darts in the USA.[3] In the previous eight years, 6,100 people had been sent to the emergency room due to lawn darts in the USA. Out of that total, 81% were 15 or younger, and half of them were 10 or younger. On the week the commission voted to ban the product, an 11-year-old girl in Tennessee was hit by a lawn dart and sent into a coma.