Toy Guns in the News

I've read several articles about toy guns in the past week or so. Some pure news articles, the other an editorial by Phil Elmore. All articles raise questions.

One toy gun news article can best be summed up as; bad guy tries to rob 82 year old man's business with a toy gun, 82 year old man has a real 357 revolver, bad guy is dead.

Another toy gun news article can best be summed up as; bad guy tries to rob store with toy gun, clerk sees bright orange tip on the end of the toy gun and chases bad guy away with a bat.

The opinion piece by Phil Elmore can be summed up best with this quote. "Enforcement stings? For toys? If that doesn't strike you as a dystopian left turn into the twilight zone of absurd totalitarian government, I don't know what would."

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would have us believe that children having toys that look like real guns (except for the bright orange plug in the end of the barrel) because they don’t have a red stripe down the side are a danger. They are such a danger that there must be a "Crackdown on illegal toy guns". Can you say "Too Much Government".

The stories raise the question; do toys/tools cause crime? Obviously New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo thinks so, otherwise he wouldn’t waste so much tax dollars on stores selling orange tipped plastic guns w/o the red stripe. Does this mean that Zippo’s cause arson? Does this mean that cars cause drunk driving? Does this mean that computer games cause software piracy? Maybe it’s the computer that causes software piracy but I thought they caused identity theft. Does this mean that color copiers cause counterfeiting? Does this mean that knives cause stabbings? I think that all the stories point out is that criminals and politicians are not Mensa caliber.

If toy guns are deadly, the real guns must be even more deadly. I was only exposed to toy guns for 10 or so years (maybe 20 if you count exposure to my kids’ toy guns). But I’ve been exposed to real guns for nearly 50. I’ve got a real loaded gun that I’ve been studying to see when it commits a crime or forces somebody else to commit a crime. This is a long term study that actually started before I was born. It’s a Smith and Wesson model 1917 .45 long cold double action revolver. It’s been loaded and ready to use for a little over 15 years that I’ve had it, and was loaded and ready to use for about 50 years before that when it was in my fathers possession. So far the only person it’s killed was a Chinese soldier in the Korean War, but he were attacking my dad and I’m sure it defended dear old dad out of compassion not malice. Since then it’s pretty much been a loyal law abiding tool, satisfied with putting holes in paper targets every now and then. I’ve been exposed to its evil affects since I was born and I haven’t seen any evidence of it committing a crime, or forcing me to commit a crime. I figure being exposed to that big evil looking handgun and many others for nearly 50 years, that if guns caused crimes I’d be a criminal. Maybe because it’s been cleaned, oiled and maintained for nearly a century its environment lead to it being a good gun. It must be that only the abused and un-cared for guns cause their possessors to commit crimes. So I started another study. I’ve got a cheap Chinese copy of an expensive American rifle. This Norinco .22 rifle, I’ve beat up, never clean, and regularly feed it cheap crappy ammo (occasionally good match grade ammo so it knows what it’s missing). I’ve left it under the seat of a truck for weeks on end, and haven’t even bothered to clean the rust off the outside of the barrel (inside has so much lead fouling it can’t rust. It is starting to show some evil tendencies, it used to never jam but now jams up about 1 in 40 rounds, so the neglect has led to its miss behavior, but nothing criminal yet. Maybe this neglected and abused weapon will cause me to rob somebody, but I’ve only been exposed to it for 20 years, I’ll have to keep testing.

Absurd to think a toy/tool causes people’s actions.