Posted on 12/16/2015 10:45:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The people of New York can sleep soundly in their beds tonight, knowing that their diligent Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, has scored a major victory in the war on guns. I’m not talking about the illegal handguns favored by the majority of gang members driving up the murder rate in New York City or the “assault rifles” which are manufactured right in our own state. No, this was a victory over toy guns. (Press&Sun Bulletin)
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.â€
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.”
The genesis of these laws is actually rooted in a problem which is a legitimate concern. If there’s a kid out there in a public place waving around what looks like a gun, pointing it at pedestrians or, even worse, the police, something bad can and sometimes will happen. But the fault in those cases isn’t with the plastic toy in the child’s hands, but in the lack of parenting at home. The solution which the government has chosen is feckless at best because it offers two new scenarios which likely lead to more damage than cure. People who buy these toys with brightly colored rings on the end of the barrel can easily either cut them off or cover them up with some shoe polish or a black magic marker. Even more disturbing is the concern raised by many cops that real criminals will take their very real guns and paint them with florescent paint. That could lead a cop to hesitate at a crucial moment, winding up dead themselves rather than getting the bad guy.
This is all part of the war on guns. For some additional reading, stop by National Review today, where Jonah Goldberg explains why the war on guns failed while the war on tobacco was a success.
Smoking was, until recently, a very bipartisan habit. City mice and country mice alike would walk a mile for a Camel.
The universality of smoking made it possible to proselytize against it without unleashing a full-blown kulturkampf. Sure, conservatives and libertarians complained -- often correctly by my lights -- about lost liberties, but an attack on smoking, backed up by solid evidence, didn’t simultaneously feel like an attack on one cultural group by another.
Because nonsmokers knew smokers, the war on tobacco could be fought face-to-face in our homes, businesses, movie theaters, planes, trains, and automobiles. And when nonsmokers pleaded with their friends and loved ones to give up tobacco, they at least understood the appeal of smoking. Cigarette America wasn't a foreign country. You can't say the same thing about Gun America.
It’s a great analysis and explains in a tidy fashion how struggles against real problems can make remarkable progress when you know your opponent and deal with them honestly… like real people. But a highly politicized fight based on speculative “evidence” at best is probably just going to get your debate partner up on their hind legs, kicking and screaming. Food for thought for the anti-gun rights lobby.
Ban pop tarts with sprinkles, they can be made to look quite gun-ish.
single moms + boys without toy guns = EMASCULATED MALES
It’s not about what they said. It’s about criminalizing the thought of a gun. This explains why they persecuted the kid who chewed a pop tart and played a gun-like game with it.
That’s some good bite work you’ve done there.
Kids make toy guns out of just about anything to play shoot-em-up games. Only the rich kids would have manufactured toy guns. So what are they going to do? Put some seven YO kid in jail for having one?
“single moms + boys without toy guns = EMASCULATED MALES”
One of the first places to see this is in pop culture when Laura Petrie says she doesn’t want Richie to have guns
She was no single mom
People are oprahfied. Fathers too when they don’t get informed
Everyone knows boys will make weapons out of whatever they get their hands on. Why don’t they learn why before they wrestle weapons away?
Ignorance is exalted in this country. Facts are facts. Trump is just stating facts as he is aware and its resonating
The fact is that boys go to weapons in their formative years. There are theories. One, by a well respected child development expert, from mid 1900s is that it aids boys’ normal sex development. Another is that weapons cause a boy to be violent. The first theory is tested and sound. It mimics the boys’ fairy tales from before the Middle Ages. The second one is untested and reactionary. It’s ideological and it results in bad outcomes
I’m a single mom I wouldn’t dream of discouraging a boy from learning how to handle a weapon
A long time ago, I was reading the works of Henry Miller, and one of the philosophical factoids that jumped out at me was the reference to the French mothers forbidding their sons to play with toy guns or play at “war-like” games, and as a consequence, the French became known as “surrender monkeys”, willing to throw down their weapons and either flee or capitulate on the spot. This fascination with the apparent cowardice of the French was intertwined with his description of what it was like to live in France in the 1920’s, the setting of his first novel, Tropic of Cancer.
For a long time, this author and his works were considered to be “too pornographic” for sale or distribution in the US, but by 1961, it was finally allowed to be sold here.
My cousin’s wife refused to let her children play with toy guns. It was forbidden. They never had a toy gun.
They used sticks they picked up in the back yard instead.
Sometimes you just can’t fix stupid.
“My cousin’s wife refused to let her children play with toy guns. It was forbidden. They never had a toy gun.”
Same here, so my brother and I made guns from Legos that would actually shoot — Legos.
They cannot buy TOY GUNS in NY?? Come on folks! Get a real life.
First they came for the Big Gulp drinks....
What if they use their finger and pretend it is a gun? What if they use a stick? Are those felonies or just misdemeanors? Will conservative kids end up with Juvie records by the time they are 10? What is with those people??
My grandkids make them out of Legos. Lol
Same here, so my brother and I made guns from Legos that would actually shoot — Legos.
________________________________________________________
Kids are often smarter than grownups.
It is not a legitimate concern. It is a false concern. It is like blaming a rape victim for not wearing conservative enough clothing (or more accurately in much of the world, for daring to even show an ankle or wrist - thanks Muslims.)
It is outrageous that we continue to play this game - banning toys to hopefully keep cops from killing children. I mean, seriously, contemplate that for a moment...
This ban will not prevent one tragedy at all. There is still zero incentive for a cop not to open fire while safely behind cover at a child who is holding a toy or a stick or even a leaf. It has only one point: to punish anyone they can lay their hands on for daring to arm a child, even in fantasy. To demonize guns and make it far more acceptable for other outrageous legislation.
Then there is the Freudian theory that guns (among a host of other things) are phallic symbols. Boys would naturally gravitate toward them because they reinforce the projection of their manhood as a seat of power.
It’s significant that another common phallic symbol is the automobile, to which many teenage boys (and a lot of teenage men) also gravitate. Girls and women do not generally tend to be nearly as drawn to those objects.
Freud may have been on to something.
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