Since 1949, LEGO has granted children of all ages an outlet to express their creativity. The near 600 billion parts produced over that time have been used to craft all sorts of wondrous creations.

LEGO builders are still free to erect whatever they choose, but the tendered designs and themes, as well as the parts themselves, are becoming more violent in nature.

To discern the finding, a group of researchers from New Zealand conducted two experiments. First, they analyzed a massive database of LEGO parts and sets to uncover the proportion of parts that are weapons and the proportion of sets that contain weapons. Though the data contains a number of outliers, there seems to be a broad trend of rising weaponization. The change is particularly apparent since the turn of the century. In 2001, just 3 percent of LEGO sets sold contained weapons. In 2014, that proportion was nearly 30 percent!