In which a Nerf toy causes a lockdown meltdown at a Long Island school.
A lime-green Nerf toy gun caused an hours-long lock-down at a Long Island school on Tuesday.
A 911 caller told Nassau County Police she saw a suspicious teen at about 7:38 a.m. Tuesday wearing a black jacket and carrying a black backpack at Elmont Memorial high School in Elmont.
The caller said he was also carrying a lime green gun.
It turned out to be something like this. Note for non-gun owners: They’re not even an attempt to look real. They shoot little spongy darts that don’t even hurt.
Eventually, a SWAT team somewhere is going to gun down a kid for toting an airsoft gun. These panics just about guarantee it. Just this week, police killed a Colorado man’s dog for no reason, after knocking on the wrong door. Mistakes do happen and these panic attacks are not helping.
Rather than having people like Barack Obama, who can’t tell a clip from a magazine, impose gun control, maybe what we need is universal firearms education. No one who knows a thing about real guns would have mistaken a Nerf toy gun for a real one.
If I were moved to say to Barack Hussein Obama that there’s something he doesn’t know and needs to study up on, I’d do it from a considerable distance. Remember, this is the man who knows more about subject X than his X Advisor — for any and all values of X.
There’s a reason why toy guns now come in lime-green mode. So that people (especially police) will not confuse them with real guns and shoot a kid.
They’d probably send SEAL team 6 after me now, what with the arsenal I had as a kid.
I forget who made it, but when I was six (and my Dad was over in Vietnam), I had a big honkin’ thing that looked like an M-60 on steroids. It had an “authentic machine-gun sound,” a folding bipod, flip-up sights, and a spring-powered rocket launcher. It was colored olive green and black, just like the real thing! Only the rockets were orange – so you could find them when you shot them into the bushes.
I used to run around the neighborhood with this thing, wearing an authentic ARVN camo shirt my Dad sent me (size of large American 6-year-old evidently equalled size of small Vietnamese soldier) and a plastic “Monkey Patrol” helmet complete with plastic foliage.
Epilogue for the Benefit of Liberals: I grew up to be a technical writer, not a mass murdering psychopath.
If that doesn’t prove only the police and military can be trusted with guns, nothing ever will.
In my town a bunch of high school kids were playing some kind of paintball game out by the airport on night. (Let us agree in advance that that was a pretty stupid move- but teens are not known for their attention to potential consequences.) At the time, I was relieved they weren’t all arrested, but now I wonder if they would be shot on sight.
And that’s something that will happen, one day–kids in high schools will learn how to shoot, so they may be part of their community as adults. Same as they will learn other things as needed to pitch in during emergencies–basics.
I am not in favor of national service. I am in favor of greater education in high school on how to be a man in your community.
But, but, someone might paint a REAL gun lime green so they could sneak somewhere to do mayhem!!!!!
“When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”
Yah, like that Hello Kitty Ar-15 that’s so handy for stealth missions …
I live in the metropolitan area of a midwest farm state. Many people here, particularly rural residents, enjoy hunting. In order to obtain a hunting license in my state, you must first successfully complete a state run, volunteer taught, firearms safety training program in which gun safety and game identification are taught. In addition, the students are taken to a gun range to fire a certain number of rounds while shooting at paper targets. Most families which own guns enroll their children in this course as soon as they reach their eleventh or twelfth birthday. Each of our children took this course, although none of them has chosen to take up hunting.
Four of the most important rules these courses teach are:
1.) Assume any and every gun is loaded and ready to fire until you safely determine that it is not. (How many tragic news stories have you read where the idiot holding the smoking gun, standing over his dead friend, proclaimed,”I didn’t think it was loaded.”?
2.) Be ever vigilant about where you are pointing the gun. This is referred to as “muzzle control”.
3.) Do not point a gun at any animal or person unless you intend to kill it.
4.) Guns and alcohol use are a deadly combination.
Upon successful completion of this course, the state issues a certificate to you. If you choose, you can have it noted on your driver’s license. I gather that most states have a similar firearms safety course and that the states reciprocally honor the other states’ certifications. This enables you to obtain a hunting license in others states which require such certification, without having to take a few days to complete that state’s certification program.
Concealed carry education and certification are entirely separate programs. I would guess that the greater majority of people who obtain the firearms safety certificate do not go on to obtain a concealed carry permit.
I grew up in a family which had a long tradition of hunting extending back to colonial days in New England. During my life, at one time or another, I have hunted squirrel, raccoon, pheasant, and deer. But, I actually just enjoy going to a gun range and shooting paper targets.
Also, during my lifetime, I have nearly been killed twice by gunfire—once when I stumbled into the middle of a gangland kidnapping while traveling in Europe. Another time, when a fellow hunter in my deer hunting group fired at some deer on the crest of a hill, without his considering that I was directly behind the deer and within range of his gun. Despite these incidents, I do not fear guns, as beautifully made, but lethal objects that they can be. I only fear the individuals which may be handling those guns.
I strongly support universal firearms safety training. I believe it would dispel a great deal of hysteria about guns. I believe it would save lives. It would also be in keeping with the “well regulated militia” aspect of our individual Constitutional rights to bear arms.
“1.) Assume any and every gun is loaded and ready to fire until you safely determine that it is not. (How many tragic news stories have you read where the idiot holding the smoking gun, standing over his dead friend, proclaimed,”I didn’t think it was loaded.”?
2.) Be ever vigilant about where you are pointing the gun. This is referred to as “muzzle control”.
3.) Do not point a gun at any animal or person unless you intend to kill it.
4.) Guns and alcohol use are a deadly combination.”
If these are the rules you were taught then they are in error.
(1) is iscorrect.
(2) and (3) are the same. “Do not point a gun at something unless you are willing to destroy it.”
Rule (3) is “Know your target and what’s beyond it.” i.e., that bullet is going some place if you miss
Rule (4) is “keep your finger away from the trigger until you have satisfied Rule (3).
I agree that Alcohol and guns don’t mix
I have a Rule (5) for people who carry a pistol. The gun comes out of the holster only if you need it or are clearing it for storage. No show and tell.
Two more little kids in Maryland suspended for pointing their index fingers and saying “pow…”
No one needs a lime green Nerf gun for hunting. Ban them.