"you'll shoot yer eye out, kid"

[KC]

From the WSJ Opinion Journal
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A Red Ryder Christmas
The government decides not to ban BB guns. Hooray!

Friday, November 28, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

We bear glad tidings for the Ralphie Parkers of America on this, the official opening day of the Christmas shopping season: Santa may yet come through with that genuine Red Ryder BB gun. Even if it will come covered in warning labels instead of wrapping paper.

Two years ago we reported in this space how the grinches at the Consumer Product Safety Commission had taken aim against the Daisy Manufacturing Co. That's the company that makes the Red Ryder BB gun that Ralphie so desperately pines for in the cherished holiday film classic "A Christmas Story." Apparently the commission's departing chairman, Ann Brown, wanted to go out with a bang. The CPSC suit seeking the mandatory recall of 7.5 million Daisy air guns came just two days before her resignation.

Christmas is the time for miracles, however, and the good news is that the commission has just reversed itself in a 2-1 vote for a settlement that drops the recall demand. Commissioner Mary Sheila Gall, who was the sole dissenting vote against the initial filing, declared that in 30 years of government service, she had "never seen a more outrageous miscarriage of justice and abuse of the processes of public policy" than the CPSC action against Daisy. This time she was joined by the new chairman, Hal Stratton, who voted to settle after reviewing the evidence and concluding that the CPSC might not prevail on the merits.


That's the sugar plum. Now for the lump of coal. Federal agencies don't like admitting that they've erred, and the CPSC is no exception. So to spin this as a partial victory, the settlement forces Daisy to spend even more time and money telling people what they already know: Be careful, or you'll shoot your eye out!
Specifically, Daisy will have to lay out $1.5 million for an ad campaign instructing users in the "safe handling" of its air rifles. It must also publish and distribute a list of 10 (only 10?) safety rules. Finally, Daisy must affix more and bigger warning labels stating that the gun must--wait for it!--always be treated as if it were loaded.

But as "A Christmas Story" brings home every year, if ever there were a product that didn't need a public awareness campaign, it would be BB guns. That awareness, after all, provided the humorous backdrop of Jean Shepherd's original storyline. As hard as it may be for our federal nannies to conceive, even back in Indiana in the 1940s, when the story is set--long before the CPSC was parenting the nation--ordinary adults understood the danger. Just ask Ralphie, who has to listen to every single adult from his mother and teacher to the department-store Santa tell him he couldn't have a BB gun because "he'd shoot his eye out."

As annoying as Ralphie found these grown-ups, they served a purpose. It's worth noting that the rap against Daisy was that BBs might occasionally get stuck in the air gun, causing kids to think it was unloaded and handle it unsafely. With all due respect to the goodniks at the CPSC, no warning label will ever replace parents who teach their children never to point a gun at anyone, whether it is loaded or not.

In fact, our suggestion is that Daisy include a video of "A Christmas Story" in each of its BB gun boxes. Not only would it be more fun than a warning label, it would undoubtedly be a lot more effective.

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Wasn't sure if this is more appropriate here, in general, or under non-firearms, but anyway...I'm glad some government agency (despite it's effforts to the contrary) isnt suing another company into extinction in my name by proxy to make me safe from Red Ryder BB guns.

 

[TarpleyG]

"never seen a more outrageous miscarriage of justice and abuse of the processes of public policy"

Damn skippy!!!

It must also publish and distribute a list of 10 (only 10?) safety rules.

Writer must not be a shooter. Why do you need 10 (or more) when 4 cover everything you need? Sounds simple enough to me. Why add more confusion by adding more stuff to remember?

GT

 

[TheOtherOne]

(only 10?)

I think he was being facetious. Like his "--wait for it!--" comment on treating the guns as if it were loaded.

Good article!

 

[Desertdog]

Good o' Red Ryder. Great little rifles for 8 to 12 year olds. I did not shoot my eye out when I was a kid. Nope, I managed to shoot another kid in the eye. It only hit the eye lid, so he was lucky, no permanent damage to him.
I did learn not to shoot at other kids.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Target is selling a Tshirt with a picture of the Christmas Story Kid on it with a shot out glasses lens

its labeled You'll shoot your eye out

 

[Standing Wolf]

If it even looks like a firearm, the leftist extremists want to ban it.

 

[HankB]

It must also publish and distribute a list of 10 (only 10?) safety rules.

I thought there were only FOUR rules?

 

[Tom Bri]

Most unfair. My Dad confiscated MY Daisy after my cousin (hanging out of haymow window) shot my brother in the stomach with it. He had also shot most of the rest of us, but no one told. It was a good six months before I got it back. My brother claims not to even remember the incident, but then it wasn't his BB gun that got put away.

 

[Orthonym]

Ten Rules? Poo! Four Rules? Poo!

IMHO, there's only one rule:Be careful where you point it!

 

[Bob Locke]

There are three whippings that I got in my youth (and two of them were nearly 30 years ago!) that I still remember, and one involved a BB gun:

I shot my little brother on the collarbone with my Daisy BB gun when I was 6 or 7. We were playing "war", and he was hiding behind a metal trash can and jumping around with the lid in his hand as a shield. Being an expert marksman from birth ( ), I snuck a round under the shield and he yelped like I had hit HIM in eye. Not proud of it (not now, anyway, or after dad got done), but it happened.

I remember when this nonsense first cropped up. Glad to see that it's been toned WAY down, even though it hasn't gone away completely.

 

[pax]

Orthonym,

The purpose of having four rules rather than only one is that they all interlock and overlap.

No human being is perfect, and we all mess up from time to time. If there were only one rule ("Be careful where you point it!") then when the inevitable simple goof happened, it would be a tragedy.

But with four rules, you can violate one or more rules and still not cause a tragedy as long as you are still following the other rules. (If you forget to treat the gun as if it's loaded, your buddies are still safe because you didn't have your finger on the trigger and you didn't point it at them anyway ... etc).

What I'm getting at is that if you ingrain the four rules, it takes a compound error rather than a simple one in order to 'accidentally' injure or kill someone else -- and that's why we need four rules rather than just one.

pax

1) All guns are always loaded.
2) Never point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3) Never put your finger on the trigger until your sights are on target and you are ready to shoot.
4) Be sure of your target and of what's beyond your target.

 

[Orthonym]

Preachin' to the choir, Pax,

and I do try to remember all four, but, hey, one rule is simple, and so am I sometimes. (like late at night reading and writing here when I should be sleeping)