Why? They are already selling guns and tanks there. Isn’t shooting people and crushing them with armored vehicles (ever watched children playing?) for nothing worse than belonging to the other team just a tid bit worse than selling them what they want to buy, even if it is meth?
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Why?
Because. Apples are apples, Oranges are Oranges, and meth will kill you and ruin your life:
Citation: Several neighbors who are veterans, who drove real tanks and have their shit together. Also, former neighbors who were meth-users, most of whom were dead by 30.
Slight difference, I can see how you’d miss it. 
But Toys R Us wasn’t selling meth.
Frankly, if your kid even knows who these characters are then you’ve probably already failed as a parent. If your kid knows who these characters are and thinks of them as examples to emulate in their own life then you’ve definitely failed as a parent.
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Nope, just advertising it. Where is the Marlboro Man action figure? Where is Joe Camel?
Frankly, if your kid even knows who these characters are then you’ve probably already failed as a parent
Well that is very true.
Well, a tank or a gun can kill you and ruin your life too. 
Unless it’s a pretend tank or a pretend gun. Or pretend meth…
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I hardly think Breaking Bad could be viewed as an endorsement for meth. Pretty much everyone in the show has their entire life destroyed by meth. And the action figures themselves are mostly boring looking guys in street clothes or lab coveralls, you’d need to be familiar with the source material to get the violence and drug references.
Meanwhile, the Toys R Us website still lists dozens of “M”-rated video games.
{Edit to add example)
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When was Toys R Us renamed Toys Only For Kids R Us?
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Yeah, I don’t get who would even consider these “action” figures, or how any kid (or grownup for that matter) might actually play with them. Bald chemistry teacher in gray slacks and jacket, looking constipated and holding a pistol. Some dude in a yellow jumpsuit. Maybe three points of articulation. And the accessories are a detachable sack of cash and a bag of blue crystals.
If my kid asks for these, by golly, I have no problem with him playing with them. He’s not gonna be re-creating the Misadventures of Walt & Jesse because he’s never seen the show and has no idea whatsoever who these guys are or what Breaking Bad was about. But if he ever wanted to know, I don’t mind telling him. The tale of how a terminally ill schoolteacher decided to sell illicit substances to ensure the financial security of his beloved family but eventually degenerated into an egotistical murderer is not, in my mind, a more depraved tale than that of a young slave boy who grows up to be a protective knight, is tempted by love and increasing power, becomes led astray and betrayed and increasingly desperate to use his power for what he considers to be reasonably noble ends, and eventually is convinced to kill relatively innocent and helpless children, is cut to pieces and left to die in a pit of molten lava, is rescued and kept alive and told the love of his life was killed (by the wrong people), and eventually becomes the genocidal right-hand-man to genocidal tyrants. One of those stories is slightly more realistic than the other, but they’re both cautionary fables, and not without merit when it comes to explaining how good people can go bad, once a child becomes sophisticated enough to begin to see the world in more shades than black and white.
And until that point, the dude in the yellow jumpsuit with no superpowers and lame accessories whose knees don’t even bend isn’t gonna be any kid’s idea of a fun toy they’re gonna ask for for Christmas.
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‘Wrong aisle’, if that’s what’s going on, seems both inexcusable and easy to fix without all that hoopla.
Is it a “child’s” toy store only though? That’s precisely the conceptual/perceptual/subjective rub behind the heated discussion, isn’t it?
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^This. Toys-R-Us has clearly failed to advertise to the public what demographics they are in business to suck money away from. The perception that they only have toys for kids (and presumably young kids, at that) is a perception of their own making, and it doesn’t correspond with the reality of what they stock in their stores.
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So do all stores now need to specify who their intended customer is?
http://www.toysrusinc.com/about-us/vision-values/
Word cloud that page, or really probably any other “about us” page on their website. “kids” is right in the center in the largest size.
Really I cannot understand how anyone could fail to realize that Toys R Us is a kid-oriented store. It is relentless in their marketing. Their signs are a bunch of letters in multicolored stylized pre-schooler font complete with backward star-hole R!
They do have some policies related to edge cases. M rated games are to be kept behind the counter, however they have decided to stock them (likely just too much money in it). They do not sell real-looking toy guns. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they sell movies beyond PG rating. And, as of a day or two ago, no ‘breaking bad’ action figures.
Also, stumbled over this. Of a general reference.
The Social Consequences of Everything. Sums up several of the later sub-discussions in a couple different threads fairly neatly.
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