Toy Guns, Real Guns
Mayor Michael Bloomberg (RINO-NY) decided to play a little game today. He brought a real-looking toy gun to a press conference. He then talked about cracking down on the shops that sell these toys, because cops have shot people that are brandishing toy guns.
I understand that there are only a few cops in this country that actually enjoy shooting people. It’s not something I’d want to have to go through - especially when finding out that the threat was a toy. But if someone wants to point a toy gun at the police and they get shot, I have to wonder why anyone thinks they didn’t have it coming.
But, the law is the law, and the law says toy guns have to look as unreal as possible. Fine - the Mayor is perfectly justified in his crackdown. Good luck to him.
Where Mayor Bloomberg loses me is when he spouts nonsense like this:
Keep in mind, outlawing real guns is a problem in this country with the NRA
How any parent or caring human being looking at the carnage on the streets of this country and not want to outlaw guns I can’t quite understand.
This man is obviously lacking both a knowledge of statistics, and a familiarity with current events. The number of people killed by guns1 in this country is small compared with the number that die from car accidents2.
However, in the countries that HAVE outlawed firearms (England and Australia are the ones that come to mind) have seen violent crime — especially involving firearms — skyrocket. I can only conclude that the man is hopelessly naïve.
1. Total murders in U.S. in 2002 - 14,209. Murders committed with firearms in 2002 - 9,220. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2002, Table 2.10, page 23.
2. Approximately 43,000 in the US in 2002. Source: NHTSA National Highware Safety Data Charts.