Los Angeles: "Police Sting Targets Ice Cream Vendors Selling Toy Guns"

[Old Partner]

It is for occifer safety

This is for occifer safety! If they wanted safety, they should have gone into another line of work, like driving ice cream trucks.

 

[M-Rex]

Wow.

A BB went through a sheet of paper at arm's length. The horror.

Asinine.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

This is what happens when you let Marxists teach the Constitution...

School officials already have suspended three students for bringing their plastic guns to school.

The suspensions prompted students at Fairview, a First Amendment school that incorporates civil liberties in the curriculum and campus life, to launch a protest this week against ice cream truck vendors selling guns.

Oi! Crippling irony pangs, I can't stand up straight...

At Fairview School, there have been no tragedies. The zerotolerance policy is aimed at keeping it that way.

 

[mattf7184]

CA law does regulate the importation, sale, distribution of 'imitation' guns. If the 'imitation' gun does not have the bright orange muzzle, or is not brightly colored overall so as to not resemble a real firearm, it can't be sold.

And gang members in South Florida paint their real guns orange too...they don't get color doesn't matter.

 

[FallenAngel]

When the boy returned from his suspension he told the principal that he had approached a flea-market vendor who was selling imitation guns and asked him not to sell the guns to kids because they could get in trouble if they took them to school.

In June 2003, police in Richmond shot and killed a 16-year-old boy who was using a toy gun while trying to rob an undercover officer.

In May 2000, California Highway Patrol officers shot and killed a 37-year-old man who allegedly pointed a pistol at them. It was a toy.

In May 1993, two men were playing with cap guns in the parking lot of the St. Charles Saloon in Columbia. Two narcotics officers, passing by and taking the guns for real, opened fire. Their hail of bullets shattered windows on the men's car, wounded a man who didn't have even a toy gun, and barely missed a woman in a restroom.

What I do not get is why are people placing the responsibility where it does not belong? I mean, come on! "Since you sell toy guns that kids MAY take to school, you cannot sell them anymore." Where does this go? "Since you sell cars that MAY be used to hit someone and kill them, you cannot sell cars anymore."

Why not place the responsibility where it belongs? If you point toy gun at a cop and are killed, well, ITS YOUR OWN FAULT! If you try to rob an undercover officer with a toy gun and are killed, ITS YOUR OWN FAULT!

I hate this lack of responsibility our society is promoting anymore. When are people going to start taking responsibility for their actions and teaching their kids about responsibility?

And as for the example of cops opening fire on the two guys playing with cap guns, the responsibility lie firmly on the cops. If they stopped for half a second and looked, they would have realized that they were cap guns. But oh, it is the fault of the men playing with the cap guns, and the ice cream trucks, and the toymakers.

This makes me sick.

 

[Lucky]

I've got that Crossman pistol, but in silver instead of black.

I don't know for sure, but I bet that it penetrates about 2" of flesh. I do know that with a fresh cannister and 2m range it penetrates a mouse (about 1"), with enough energy to flatten the (small) hp bullet against the floor. If kids are shooting other kids with this, it's kind of like stabbing someone with a pen. It's better than being stabbed with a knife, but it's still being stabbed.

And I have to agree, it's not a toy. In fact, I highly doubt that kids were shooting it at each other. I suspect it was shown along with toys that kids actually were shooting at each other. Having been a kid myself, not very long ago, we loved those little plastic pellet guns. there's no air, just the spring tension of pulling the trigger. They are as close to harmless as you can ever get (Except on the vaacuum cleaner that sucks up the hundreds of little yellow pellets).

As a kid we also had real pellet guns, and while we weren't safe by what I now know to be firearms safety standards, we were pretty close. and we still didn't do anything that could let anyone get in front of a gun.

There's a clear difference between them, and everyone knows it.

So my guess is this - the ice-cream trucks are selling the truly harmless toys, and they look like toys. For example of what the ice cream trucks are selling, the officer held up examples of the most realistic confiscated pellet guns they had in stock. The Crossman alone costs about $100, and no store in Canada sells them to kids (legal responsibilities).

 

[Across The Pond]

Advanced Madness...

Hi from the UK - my first post - thought you might be interested to hear that here in England the government are about to enact the 'violent crime reduction' act or some such nonsense. It will prohibit any object that resembles a firearm, even if it is no such thing, from private ownership (yes, I kid you not). We have for many years had 'deactivated' firearms that have been modified such that they can never be fired. They are popular amongst collectors since the requirements to hold real firearms are so onerous. These will also become prohibited. So, no blankfirers (already mostly banned) no airsoft, no de-acts, no wall hangers, even ornamental jobs made of pot metal will go.

This will not assist in the 'how could we know it was only a replica' situation - the Police here shot and killed a man who was carrying a table leg in a bag a while back, claiming it looked like a gun.

Despite all this, thankfully I still have my Colt cap & ball revos ('49 pocket and '51 navy)

Good forum, look forward to learning & sharing knowledge with you all.

ATP.

 

[DRZinn]

Welcome to THR!