December 09, 2014
By Robert W. Hunnicutt
When I was on a visit home recently, my 86-year-old mother asked that I bring down the old 8mm movie projector and films so we could watch them and decide if they were worth transferring to CDs. We spent quite a while watching movies that dated from 1956 through the middle 1960s.
Christmastime was the big opportunity for my dad to bring out the Bell & Howell and its retina-burning light bar, so we watched the family squint through several years of festive package opening. What held all the years together in my case was that every Christmas included at least one toy gun.
There was the Hubley Ric-O-Shay, and the Mattel Fanner .45 with the Greenie Stick-Em Caps. There was a Thompson and an M3 Grease gun, the latter with hand crank for a realistic sound. The Man From Uncle Gun combined a Walther P.38 with a buttstock, long barrel and scope. There was a foot-long scale likeness of a Winchester Model 94 I glued together like an airplane model. Finally there was that matchless day when I received my first real gun, a bolt-action .410 shotgun, and toys were no more.
All that was, I guess, preparation for almost 39 years in the gun industry. And, like much else that was shown in those flickering images, anathema to right-thinking members of today's academia.
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Take, for example, Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University . In two widely publicized recent incidents, police officers shot a Walmart shopper holding a BB gun and a 12-year-old boy with an airsoft pistol. Since both victims were black, they fit right into the current narrative of trigger-happy cops promiscuously killing black men, though perhaps they should also fit into a narrative of busybodies calling the police with insufficient or erroneous information.
Prof. Zimmerman didn't draw the conclusion that many SGN readers might have: that maybe cops need better training to spot the difference between real and toy guns. Nope, his solution is to get rid of toy guns. I will give him one small sliver of praise; he doesn't suggest government action to outlaw them; he wants shoppers to boycott stores that sell them. That's good. If he wants to engage in a fair contest of ideas, not go running to the nanny state, we can handle that.
His explanation for my experiences, and many of yours, with toy guns is that they are artifacts of a less enlightened time:
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"The guns would prevent boys from becoming 'sissies,' advocates said, amid worries that postwar suburban affluence--and overprotective mothers had eroded American masculinity. 'It is perfectly natural for young boys to be fascinated by guns,' wrote one approving physician. 'They represent an extension of power and strength.'"
Should've known it: homophobia!
"The fake guns would also steel American youth for the all-too-real struggle against Soviet Russia. 'Peace depends on all of us being rugged and ready,' declared the caption of a Saturday Evening Post cover, which showed young American boys dressed as pistol-toting cowboys."
And anti-Communism, too! A whole catalog of retrograde thinking here.
I don't doubt Prof. Zimmerman's line of argument will have its effect in urban areas: It's probably hard right now to find a toy gun in Berkeley, Calif., or Cambridge, Mass. But a quick look at the toy department shelves at the Farm & Fleet or Big R near me shows an impressive profusion of toy guns, most of them a lot more realistic than the ones I found under the tree. Little boys want toy guns just as much as I did more than 50 years ago, and that will never change, thank God.
What should change is that parents need to be judicious about where they let children handle toy guns, police need to be careful about distinguishing toy and real guns, and bystanders need to know what they are really seeing before calling 911 to report "man with a gun."
Merry Christmas!
Students Suspended for Photos with Airsoft Guns Two students at Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School in Taunton, Mass., were suspended for posing with airsoft guns in one of their own homes.
Read here for the full story.
Luxury Gun Clubs Becoming More Popular "Guntry clubs," or luxurious shooting facilities offering the same sort of amenities one would find at a golf course: comfy lounges, food and drink, pro shop, locker rooms, professional instruction, etc., are becoming much more popular. Is this good or bad for the shooting community?
Read here for more.
Young Girl Loses Control of an Uzi, Kills Firearms Instructor A Lake Havasu City, Ariz., firearms instructor was killed when a nine-year-old girl lost control of an Uzi submachine gun and a bullet hit him in the head. How young is too young when it comes to automatic firearms?
Read here for the full story of the incident.
Guns & Pot: An Uneasy Combo Is there any overlap between gun owners and those in favor of legalizing marijuana?
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full story here. New House Bill Targets SMG-Toting Bureaucrats Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) has introduced the Regulatory Agency De-militarization (RAD) Act, a bill intended to force agencies not involved in law enforcement as that term is generally understood to disband their police forces. Do non-law enforcement agencies such as the USDA really need automatic firearms?
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full story here. Only the Polarized Are Actually Polarized? Are politics too polarized, or is polarization what you get when people actually believe in something?
Read here for more.
Why You Can't Always Trust the Police A police scandal in the British city of Rotherham, where a gang abused more than 1,400 girls while authorities looked the other way, illustrates why you can't rely solely on the police for your protection.
Read here for the full story.
The Straight Dope on Kalashnikov Sanctions Kalashnikov Concern products have been banned from further importation into the U.S. as part of sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine. What do the new sanctions mean for gun owners?
Read here for the full story.
Smart Guns: What the Antis Won't Admit A California gun store that had planned to offer pistols with so-called "smart gun" technology scrapped the idea after receiving backlash from gun owners.
Read the
full account here. Anti-Gun Initiative 594 Passes in Washington While the November 4 election was somewhat of a victory for gun owners with (mostly) pro-gun Republicans gaining seats in the Senate and the House, anti-gunners have scored a big win in Washington. What does this new initiative mean for gun owners in the Evergreen State?
Read here for the full story.
Open Carry Protests: Our Internal Dilemma Open Carry Texas (OCT), a group campaigning for gun rights in Texas, has stirred controversy among pro-gun groups such as the NRA and left the issue of open carrying of rifles up for debate. Where do we draw the line on what is reasonable in terms of achieving political goals?
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full story here. The Scourge of Toy Guns A New York professor says the cure for police shooting people with toy guns is to boycott toy guns. Is that the answer?
Read the story
here .
Wolverines? Michigan Nixes American Sniper The University of Michigan temporarily cancelled a scheduled viewing of the film
American Sniper following criticism from some of the school's Muslim students.
Get the
full story here .
Front-Yard Pistol Range: Bad Idea A Florida man built a gun range in his front yard with an impromptu dirt backstop, which would be fine if he lived in a rural area. That simply wasn't the case.
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whole story here. Pot Clubs Fund San Francisco Gun Buyback In what was inevitably dubbed a "joint effort," San Francisco police conducted a gun buyback funded by local marijuana dispensaries.
Find out more here. Maryland Stockpiles Pistol Brass: To What End? For the past 15 years, every pistol sold in the state of Maryland has had to come with a fired case that is submitted to the state's registry of fired pistol brass for reference. Now the state is running out of warehouse space to store the cases.
Find out more here. Legislator Wants to Ban Silhouette Targets A Pennsylvania legislator wants to ban the use of silhouette targets on shooting ranges in the state.
Check out the
full story here .
Campus Concealed Carry: The Toga Party Fallacy The group Students for Concealed Carry is making increasingly stronger pushes to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed on college campuses. Unfortunately, some still hold the mistaken belief that all college students are wildly irresponsible.
Find out more here .
Feds Consider Gun Show Spying The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took the side of gun owners after it was uncovered that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had recently considered spying on gun shows.
Get the
full story here .