Ran that one through AI

Pointed metal-tipped lawn darts first hit the U.S. consumer market in the mid-1950s. The game was invented by Lawrence Barnett, a dentist working out of his barn in Fort Edward, New York, who began manufacturing them in nearby South Glens Falls under the trademarked brand name "Jarts" [Cited, A Little Bit Human / Annual Lawn Darts historical account]. Sources differ slightly on exact year of first commercial release: some trace the modern iteration to the 1950s, others point to Wham-O's 1964 release as the first mass-market push [Cited, Nostalgia Central; LawnGardenPro]. Either way, the product saturated American backyards during the 1960s and 1970s, with the CPSC estimating 1 to 1.5 million units sold annually in the years before the ban [Cited, 16 CFR Part 1306 preamble].

When they stopped being sold

There were two regulatory milestones:

1970: FDA "mechanical hazard" classification. Lawn darts could still be sold, but only with warning labels, caution language about children, and a prohibition on display in toy stores or toy departments [Cited, 16 CFR Part 1306; Wikipedia].

1988: outright CPSC ban. The commission voted 2 to 1 on May 25, 1988 to ban lawn darts under the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act [Cited, CPSC press release, "CPSC Votes Lawn Dart Ban," May 25, 1988]. The ban took effect December 19, 1988 [Cited, DartsPiks historical summary; 16 CFR Part 1306]. Canada followed with its own ban in July 1989, and resale of second-hand lawn darts is also prohibited under Canada's Hazardous Products Act [Cited, Wikipedia].

Modern plastic-tipped or blunt/magnetic-tipped versions remain legal in both the U.S. and EU, but the classic pointed metal-tipped Jart has not been legally sold in the United States for 37+ years [Cited, Wikipedia].

Casualties: what the records show

Deaths. The CPSC officially documents three child deaths in the U.S. tied to pointed lawn darts, with victims aged 4, 7, and 13 [Cited, CPSC press release, May 25, 1988]. The two best-documented cases:

A 4-year-old boy killed in 1970, which helped trigger the FDA's mechanical-hazard classification that same year [Cited, CPSC press release, 1987].

Michele Snow, a 7-year-old girl killed on April 5, 1987, in Riverside, California, when a dart thrown by her brother's playmate penetrated her skull [Cited, Wikipedia; Mental Floss]. Her father David Snow's lobbying was the direct catalyst for the 1988 ban.

The third fatality (a 13-year-old) is referenced in the CPSC's 1988 vote statement but is less prominently documented in secondary sources [Cited, CPSC press release, May 25, 1988]. [Inference] It likely occurred between 1970 and 1988, but I cannot pin down the specific incident from the sources reviewed.

Non-fatal injuries. The numbers are substantial:

~6,100 emergency-room-treated injuries from January 1978 through December 1986 (an 8-year window), per CPSC [Cited, CPSC press release, May 25, 1988]. Wikipedia cites the same figure across a slightly different window (1980 to 1988); the 6,100 number is the widely repeated figure. ~670 injuries per year treated in U.S. hospital ERs, per the official rule text [Cited, 16 CFR Part 1306]. 81% of victims were under age 15, and about 50% were under 10 [Cited, CPSC press release; 16 CFR Part 1306]. ~57% of injuries involved the head, face, eye, or ear, and ~40% were puncture wounds [Cited, 16 CFR Part 1306]. ~4% of injured victims were hospitalized (roughly 25 per year), including all fracture cases [Cited, 16 CFR Part 1306].

A clinical case series of 76 pediatric lawn dart patients reported a 4% case fatality rate, with sequelae including unilateral blindness and permanent brain damage [Cited, PubMed, "Childhood lawn dart injuries: Summary of 75 patients and patient report," 1990].

In Canada, at least 55 serious injuries had been documented by the time of the July 1989 ban [Cited, Wikipedia].

Post-ban injuries. Because roughly 10 to 15 million lawn dart sets were estimated to remain in American homesafter the ban [Cited, PubMed study, 1990], injuries continued. The CPSC reissued warnings in 1997 after a 7-year-old boy in Elkhart, Indiana suffered a skull puncture from an old set dug out of a garage [Cited, CPSC press release, 1997].

A note on the reporting

The 6,100 figure almost certainly understates the true injury toll. The CPSC's initial injury surveillance had been lumping lawn dart injuries in with general "dart" injuries; only when investigators separated the two during the post-Snow review did the scope become clear [Cited, Mental Floss]. [Inference] Given that dynamic, plus the fact that minor injuries often don't reach emergency rooms at all, the real lifetime injury count across the full 1950s to 1988 sales era is likely considerably higher than 6,100, though no official aggregate number exists for that longer window.

Been shot by a lot of BB guns, but never got hit with a lawn dart. I’m sure I came close on a few occasions.