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A Maryland judge wants to ban the state’s toy retailers from selling toy guns. Judge Zakia Mahasa said toy guns, even those clearly marked as toys in accordance with existing federal and state laws, present a danger to children because, to her, they still look like real guns. Federal laws require toy guns to be transparent, brightly colored and have bright orange tips at the ends of their barrels.
All guns, whether real or imagined, infuse the possessor with criminal and violent thoughts, Mahasa told WBAL TV 11 in Baltimore on July 23.
“Some little child is going to die, or somebody is going to use that (toy gun) in the commission of a robbery,” she said. “If the people who are selling them don’t care enough about our kids, I think we, as a community, should force them not to sell them.”
Mahasa’s call for a state toy gun ban marks “a new low when it comes to anti-gun hysteria in society,” writes Leah Barkoukis on July 24 in Townhall.com. “Maryland is also the state where a 6-year-old boy was suspended for pointing his finger like a gun, and a 7-year-old boy was suspended for chewing his pop tart into the shape of a gun.”
If Maryland bans toy guns, it would join a growing list of states with toy gun control laws that prohibit or regulate the sale and possession of toys that look too much like guns.
New York state bans toy guns that are black, blue, silver, or aluminum. And toy firearms must have bright orange stripes that run up both sides of the barrel. Toy guns can’t be sold in New York City unless they are colored bright green, blue, red or another neon color.
Retailer Party City paid a $500,000 fine to New York City for selling 800 toy guns. Earlier this year, a small tourist shop near Penn Station was fined $60,000 by the city for selling $10 lighters shaped like pistols.
Since 2006, New York City officials have seized more than 7,200 illegal toy guns from stores and levied $2.4 million in fines as part of its anti-toy gun crusade.
Demonization of guns isn’t always as overt as bans and seizures. A Southern California elementary school principal is associating guns with anti-social, anti-learning behavior as part of an anti-gun indoctrination that encourages children to “turn in” a toy gun in exchange for a book and a raffle ticket to win a bike.
So, if playing with toy guns is outlawed, then only outlaws will play with toy guns.
For more, go to:
-- THE WAR ON (TOY) GUNS
-- Maryland Court Official Wants to Ban Toy Guns
-- New York Targets Illegal Sales of Toy Guns
-- Toy Guns Becoming A Criminal Offense?
-- Toy Gun “Ban” Re-Launched In California
-- ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BEGINNING TOY GUN TURN-IN PROGRAM
-- “Smoking” gun nets 60G fine
-- Hawaii Lawmakers Consider Banning ALL Toy Guns
-- WHEN TOY GUNS BECOME ILLEGAL
-- School Children Banned From Toy Guns
-- [Should Toy Guns be BANNED?
](FateofDestinee; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZsPpwgQoG4/)-- Should toy guns be banned?
-- Iraq Moves to Ban Toy Guns as Play Turns Real
CC image from Flickr