TTAG central keeps a close eye on all your favorite gun control groups. Despite some reader blowback about giving Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America the “oxygen of publicity,” most of our coverage has focused on Shannon Watts’ media machine. That’s because MDA is the most active of the antis, at least in terms of media coverage. In fact, MDA – a wholly-owned subsidiary of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns – has supplanted both their billionaire benefactor’s bilious anti-ballistic bully boys and the [previous] leader in the civilian disarmament industrial complex: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Which raises the question . . .
How many calls do you think the Brady Campaign can muster today? I’m thinking not a lot. Not in comparison to the gun rights community, which, for example, completely dominated Illinois state senators’ phones when they were considering post-Newtown gun control laws. Not enough to raise their stock amongst legislators or concern their MDA rivals, who, it must be said, are incapable of assembling a sizable crowd at their “rallies.” [see: Brady’s petulant-if-somewhat-accurate analysis of MDA’s Facebook “victory”]
So what’s next for the Brady’s? Mark Glaze, Brady’s Executive Director, is about as media-friendly as a mortician. Colin Goddard, the handsome survivor of the Virginia Tech spree killing, is obvious by his absence from the proverbial field of battle. (Colin engaged me in a Tweet war, I invited him to debate, he declined and disappeared.) And the name “Brady” continues to fade in Americans’ collective conscious.
Perhaps the Fort Hood shooting will give the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence a new lease on life. Maybe they’ll get with the program and call for gun prohibitions for anyone who’s ever received mental health treatment, instead of fighting a rear-guard action on politicians who failed to support universal background checks.
Meanwhile, we hear that gun rights guys and gals are using the Brady’s Out Shout telephone number (1-855-506-7565) to thank their Congressman for voting against universal background checks and, thus, supporting firearms freedom. You might think that’s a great way to run up the Brady’s phone bill, but we couldn’t possibly comment. Until the increasingly desperate Brady Campaign makes another bone-headed move to gain relevance.
Bought an xds when it first came out………………..sold it…heard about recall and was glad I sold it……year later when post recall ones were available, I bought another………….3 different times FTF…….not for me!!….went to Glock 36 and have never looked back
Brady Campaign is even more on the decline when you compare their position relative to the Bloomberg machine’s position.
1)They are competing for the same limousine liberal/SWPL type of donors/celebrities.
2)The exec of MAIG threw a hissy fit at Brady Campaign for trying to poach celebrities for a post-Newtown ad.
3)Brady’s star professional victim Colin Goddard recently jumped ship to Bloomberg’s organization. This indicates organizational weakness.
4)Brady has recently had a large degree of turnover over the years.
5)Bloomberg bought off CSGV
If somebody points a gun at me, I will assume they desire to be in a gunfight and accomidate them.
If you are pointing a toy gun at me, it is because you intend for me to believe it is a real gun. You have made your intentions clear. You are trying to get me to do something that I wouldn’t normally do unless the gun was in the equation.
Play stupid games, win stupid prides.
The penalty should be the same.
“The current law gives robbers an incentive to use fake or toy guns in the commission of their crimes.”
“Many robbers never believe that anything is going to go wrong when they are in the process of committing crimes”
So which is it? Do robbers use toy guns because they think they might get caught and know about the additional penalty or do they not think anything is going to go wrong? Additionally, what exactly makes you think someone who is committing armed robbery is going to care about the additional penalty of a firearm law? Maybe we should put some “no guns allowed” signs up with that logic.
Criminals generally use replica guns because they’re easier/cheaper to get.
To avoid law abiding citizens being prosecuted by publicity seeking D.A.s or criminals trying another way to steal your money, the law needs to protect citizens by responding with deadly force if the “weapon” being used by the perpetrator is a fake.
Though manufacturers are now required to put an orange insert in the end of the barrels to designate it is a fake, the orange insert can easily be cut off and black shoe polish used to color any remains. Also, in the shock of the moment, a citizen may miss the small orange insert, even if it is there.
Criminals that are so dumb as to use dis-functional guns, fake guns, toy guns, guns without ammunition or improper ammunition may be just as dead if they try to rob any of my neighbors, family, or myself.
I would take the position that everyone should be equal.
While performing their duties, if the police are not charged for shooting (in self defense) a child or adult that points a toy gun, tv remote control, fork…etc in their direction, the regular peasantry should be treated with the same consideration when deadly force is used in their own self defense as well.
As to the question, no they shouldn’t bring the same penalties. Nobody should spend 10 years in prison for taking a toy gun into a GFZ
in Alabama, as long as the victim “reasonably believes” that the robber is armed with a weapon, it doesn’t matter if it’s a magic marker in a pocket; it’s still Robbery 1st Degree.
In AL, deadly force can be used by the victim in any degree of robbery (even third degree, which is unarmed,,but by force or threat of force).
Good law.
If you make toys an exception, I’ll guarantee every robber will produce the toy gun he used at trial. (Which his family bought at WalMart that morning.).
Robber uses toy gun, innocent folks don’t get shot. Good guy sees toy gun, shoots robber.
Assuming there is no legal penalty for the good guy and it’s treated as a legitimate DGU I’m not seeing the downside.
“Question of the Day: Should Toy Guns Bring the Same Penalties as Real Guns?”
This is an incomplete question because it’s missing context and usage of said tools.
The article then delves into scenarios of armed robbery which gives us the context to the question. Well yes, regardless of the tool used, if you’re committing a robbery or have the intent to do so, you should be charged for the full extent of the law for the crime you were committing regardless of what tool you were using. It could be your finger in your pocket for all I care, a robbery is a robbery. It’s still a crime. Doesn’t matter if you were using a toy gun or a real gun to initiate the robbery.
As far as playing with toy guns on the street, well that’s a matter of common sense and upbringing. Depends on the “style” of toy gun being used. I certainly would recommend that children play with “realistic” guns on the street as that is liable to get the police called on them and potentially shot.
Thirty years ago, you would be relatively safe playing on the street with toy guns (if you were a child anyway). No police officer would question a child holding a “gun” because they would assume it was fake, even if it looked fairly realistic. I had a host of “realistic” toy guns growing up overseas and never had a problem. Fast forward 30 years and X amount of school shootings by insane people of various age, that’s no longer the case — particularly in America.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend that any child play with toy guns on the street unless they were fluorescent colored or obviously toys (ie. nerf guns, etc.).
I am frightened by people bringing up self-defense here. That has NOTHING to do with it. You are not punishing anyone in such a case, and what matters there is the reasonableness of your belief.
When, after the fact, the perp was found to be using a toy gun, that supports a mitigating claim, namely that while he is certainly guilty of threatening violence (and hence merits punishment), he had a clear intention not to use violence, and that has colorable support.
The court of law and the penal system is operated on a different standard. Self-defense does not deal with categories of guilt and innocence. Merely reasonable action in response to what reasonably believes to be his situation.
Tom Forrest
You beat me to it, but I’m gonna reach further. My coin is on the lad rolling into the depression unit (warrior whatever), successfully enrolled with the purpose of getting disability, now the bombshell…the drugs prescribed actually altered his brain, lowered the tolerance rational thinking. Insert gun and we have a winner. Smelling cordite and coming off the adrenalin, reality took hold, realized what happened and smoked Mr. Browning.
There I said it…and might have an element of truth. Once agin the Army takes the easy way out, hire mind doctors, prescribes drugs, instead of a platoon packing a ruck and talking a long walk, building campfires, man hugging, and working through the brain housing group.
I’d love a Tavor in OD green…another one for my list…
Who is the IDIOT that asks at 0:50 “how many does it hold? SIX? ” That is what is wrong with America today. You have folks in the gun community who are so unfamiliar with a classic weapon. One that Patton called …. it doesn’t even matter cause they probably don’t even know who Patton is. A generation of iPhone people….ZERO sense of history. Zero knowledge of the past further back than 1999. The kind of folks that I laugh at on Cash Cab, but sadly realize that this is America 2014.
Love my M1, and love my Carbine. I wish I could find more time to shoot the former, and more ammo to shoot the latter.
I keep my SLR-106 kitted and ready for the inevitable SHTF stuff. 5.56 will be plentiful, even if it means taking it off of the unavoidable casualties one might encounter.
But when ADVENTURE calls? The Carbine answers. 5lbs, short OAL, and recoil so sweet yer grandma can shoot it. When I head into the mountains, or on a long road trip, the carbine is the rifle I take with me. I’d take the Garand, but hey, he’s always with us in spirit.
Obviously the Second Amendment as ratified had exactly one comma in the sentence. This one has three. The construction of the sentence is certainly not identical grammatically.
I want that .50.