January 27, 2011 - 2:51 pm
And by toy gun, I should emphasize the “toy” part because it’s just a little piece of plastic in the shape of a gun. It doesn’t actually fire anything. So now, we’re banning shapes.
The crouching, camouflaged figure is most certainly armed. But few would say he was dangerous.
Security officials disagreed however when he passed through a scanner at Gatwick Airport.
His three-inch, plastic toy gun was branded a ‘firearm’ and banned from a transatlantic flight.
It doesn’t even have a trigger. No bullets. It’s solid plastic. It couldn’t even be used to pretend hijack a model airplane.
Airport security doesnt make sense most of the time. Back in 1982 or 3, I went to the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver. In the Dealers Room at the con, I found a toy Id been looking for: a Cosmic Liquidator, the first pressurized water pistol, with a backpack-style fuel pack and a length of aquarium tubing to the pistol, which was white plastic. It cost me $20 and it didnt w ork: the tubing was dehydrated and wouldnt make a seal. When I tried to board the plane home, with the boxed toy in my carry-on (the only luggage I had!), it was spotted and extracted at the x-ray.
No guns on the plane, lady.
Its a water pistol. And it doesnt work.
No guns on the plane, lady.
Its a collectible toy.
No guns on the plane, lady.
But…
No guns on the plane, lady.
They made me put it through checked luggage. I almost missed the plane.
If that happened today Id probably be arrested.