Tag Archives: Toy weapon

This Is Ridiculoous

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I realize that there is a small group of people in America who oppose the Second Amendment. Some of them understand it, but don’t understand the reasoning behind it, and some simply have no idea why it is there. Occasionally it is somewhat amusing to watch the gyrations of the people who oppose guns.Today Hot Air posted a really good example of people going over the edge on the subject.

The article reports:

Three dozen online retailers will no longer be able to sell realistic-looking toy guns, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday.

Schneiderman reached a settlement with 30 online toy gun retailers who sell their products through Amazon.com. The third-party retailers have sold over 5,000 imitation toy guns in New York, and they are illegal because they did not meet state safety standards, he said.

“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “New York state law prohibits the sale of imitation weapons that closely resemble real guns.”

…We may not be able to put the actual criminals in jail at a reasonable rate, but by golly we’re going to stick it to those toy retailers. The 30 or so retailers are paying fines which total more than $27K. (That’s on top of his move back in August when he nailed Amazon, Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart and ACTA for $300K, so if nothing else the state coffers are getting fatter.) If these scofflaws want to peddle their dangerous wares in the Empire State in the future they will have to be colored “white or bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink or purple.”

I realize that occasionally mistakes are made, but I refuse to believe that toy guns are a major part of any gun problem. However, you notice that this new law will provide money for the state. The law serves two purposes–it pleases a certain political group and it provides money for the state. Unfortunately, it does nothing to deal with criminals with guns.

Over The Top On Gun Control

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A California newspaper called the Mercury News posted a story on Thursday about a toy gun exchange in a local elementary school.

The article reports:

At Saturday’s event, called Strobridge Elementary Safety Day, a Hayward police officer will demonstrate bicycle and gun safety, and the Alameda County Fire Department is sending a rig and crew to talk about fire safety.

Fingerprinting and photographing of children will be offered, with the information put on CDs for parents to use, if needed, in a missing child case. All youngsters attending will be given a ticket to exchange for a book, Hill said.

Every child who brings a toy gun will get a raffle ticket to win one of four bicycles, Hill said.

Hill said he got the idea for the toy gun exchange from a photographer, Horace Gibson, who takes students’ school pictures and who expressed concern about the spate of shootings of young people by police in Oakland.

Hill said police are rightfully fearful of being shot when they encounter so many armed suspects, and there have been cases nationwide where police mistook a toy gun for a real one.

Sometimes it’s hard just to know where to start. Why are you demonstrating gun safety while you are taking toy guns away from children?

Elementary Principal Charles Hill stated, “If we want older kids to not think guns are cool, we need to start early.” Sir, I realize you are much better educated than I and have had a lot of experience with children, but you have missed some very obvious points. If younger children are taught respect for themselves and for other people (generally speaking, respect for life), and if they are taught morals and values, they are quite likely to conclude that guns used for immoral purposes are not cool without your having to brainwash them. The problem is not the guns–it is the values we are teaching our children. We have taken the Ten Commandments off of the walls of our schools. Regardless of how you feel about the Bible or about religion, those Ten Commandments were a visual reminder to all students that at some point in their lives they were going to have to answer to an authority higher than themselves. You would get better results from having the children recite the Ten Commandments every morning than you would from confiscating a million toy guns.

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Overreacting To A Perceived Threat

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CBS Baltimore reported yesterday that two six-year old boys were suspended after playing cops and robbers during recess and using their fingers as toy guns. Needless to say, the children‘s parents are furious.

The article reports:

Dr. Kaine (child psychologist Dr. Joe Kaine) says most six-year-olds’ minds aren’t developed enough to understand why their idea of fun play might make adults upset.

“I can certainly appreciate that at school, that’s not a type of play that they are going to endorse and I certainly support that, but that’s where we educate the time and place for doing things,” Kaine said.

A number of parents agree.

“Suspending them is a bit harsh and I don’t think that’s gonna do any good for the parent, child or school,” said Janet Geotzky.

The number of suspensions has been on the rise in Maryland. School leaders say they will try to reduce those numbers.

I am neither a violent person nor a mass murderer, but I will confess to playing cowboys and Indians as a child and using my pointed finger as a gun. With all the truly gory violence children are exposed to on television and in video games, it seems to me that the least of our worries is children imagining that their pointed fingers are guns. Have we forgotten how to let children be children?

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