Buffalo toy gun buyback (courtesy wivb.com)
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“A community groups (sic) has a strong message for parents this Christmas,” Buffalo, NY’s wivb.com reports. “They want to help keep toy guns out of children’s hands…to prevent them from getting their hands on a real one.” Ellipsis indeed. How does that work? . . .

“Whatever you put in a child’s hands that’s what he feels comfortable with and you put a toy gun in his hands at an early age and when he gets older he’s going to want the real thing,” said Leonard Lane, president of Buffalo F.A.T.H.E.R.S organization.

That’s why Lane is encouraging parents to give up their child’s toy guns this Christmas and exchange it for a different toy, as part of the annual Toy Gun Exchange at the Delavan Grider community center.

Lane says it’s an effort to help stop gun violence by teaching children at an early age that guns are nothing to play with.

“I understand how a mother may feel wanting to get something her child would like, but what we don’t want to do is make a child feel comfortable with a toy gun,” said Lane.

Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have let my daughter play with that crack pipe!

But seriously folks, what’s wrong with a young American growing up to be an adult American who wants to keep and bear arms? Equally, what does F.A.T.H.E.R.S. stand for? Google is not my friend there.

The really scary part? Buffalo’s finest are on board with the toy gun buyback program.

“Little kids like to play cops and robbers but you know in the environment we live in, there’s so much violence in this world that there’s so many other options for kids to have fun,” said Capt. Steve Nichols with Buffalo police.

Capt. Steve Nichols says some toy guns look real and many times young children have used those toy guns to commit crimes.

“Even with toy guns they reach an age where they start taking off the orange tip and they start pretending that they’re real guns and try and use them in robberies or other things and really all that’s going to do is get them hurt,” said Capt. Nichols.

That’s why the message to parents this holiday is clear put –even the toy guns — down.

How about the left-leaning anti-gun press put their ignorance and prejudice down for the holiday period (at least)? As if . . .

“Put something better in their hands, something that can better the child. They need to get something a book, a football, something that can better them make them a more productive citizen in society,” said Darryl Scott, Outreach supervisor with Buffalo S.N.U.G.

Remember the MTV show Cribs? My friends and I devised a drinking game for the show. Take a shot every time we saw a book. Needless to say, we finished the program stone cold sober. So yeah, a book. After Buffalo’s young ‘uns finish playing Call of Duty.

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51 COMMENTS

  1. Faithful Available Teacher Helps Encourage Responsibility – F.A.T.H.E.R.
    Maybe give them some condoms…start early…LOL

    • Perhaps these surrogates might persuade Danisha to keep her pants on and to provide the little crumbcrunchers an actual FATHER, who has a name and is present rather than a just list of possible sperm donors.

    • Oh the irony. Probably no fathers in F.A.T.H.E.R.S.

      Pretty sure most of those grade school “Faithful Teachers” have vaginas.

      Most of the inner cities ills is not due to lack of gun control but lack of fathers.

      Major FAIL on both Dems and Repubs.
      Dems because they know their policies contributed to the problem.
      Repubs because they are cowed into silence because they’re afraid of being called RACISS! if they speak of the problem.

  2. Do these people believe that Barbie and Ken are tiny humans? Or that Hot Wheels are real cars? Or maybe Lego buildings are real and they can lead to a genuine real estate windfall? News flash, toy guns are toys. The reason your children grow up and use real guns in real crimes is your atrocious parenting and lack of a moral compass.

    • Also feel-good policies which go hand in hand with urban gun restrictions, that have essentially banned all the legitimate ways poor young guys could make a living. If you aren’t college bound, drug-dealing and gang banging is arguably the most logical path for someone with ambition in a Progressive urban hell hole.

    • As a retired law enforcement officer, (and ex-military officer) who also happens to have raised a family, I can agree 100% that this is a case of lack of proper parenting versus a “dangerous toy”. These are the same ones who say real guns kill people instead of looking at the person who used the gun. (and that person’s upbringing in most cases!) Amazing that I grew up with toy guns and own quite an arsenal for hunting, target shooting and self defense. My kids are now grown with families of their own and not a single one of us has gone out on a killing binge!

      • Absolutely, I have four children and only one through he’s own fault (drinking) got in trouble. He already knew better but didn’t listen. My other three are responsible citizens. I myself had toy guns as a child. Also, had BB & Pellet Guns, too. I knew then and know now what being responsible is. I have owned guns for years and haven’t been in any trouble. I’m also a CCW permit holder here in FL. The only comment I can come up with that covers this is by Mark Walters of Armed American Radio “Ignorance left unattended breeds Stupidity”!! Boy is he right!!!

        • So true. Living in Vegas, nothing shocks me. As for our gun rights, we have a bunch of liberal douchebags out here, pushing for even stricter gun control, all because of someone who already had passed all background checks and had no prior history of mental illness. It all comes down to one basic truth and that is that they wish to eventually take guns away from all of us and leave us like helpless sheep, the same way that they are. They have no military background, nor the guts to ever consider joining the military. And because they are spineless cowards, without the ability or the courage to defend this country, they naturally hate what they can’t be, or can never become. Therefore, they attack us out of jealousy, using the only means that they have at their disposal, which is their big mouths and by trying to turn what is Constitution, into worthless paper. I truly dislike liberals.

  3. I played cops & robbers, cowboys & Indians. My brother and I didn’t take our toy guns when we visited our Grandparents in the foothills, so we picked up sticks. The shape of the sticks determined whether we fought the British or the Germans. We grew up, joined the Military, avid hunters, CCW holders, no criminal activity, no urges to shoot people.

    • “I played cops & robbers, cowboys & Indians.”

      Kids in NYC play ‘Ripoff the dealer’, ‘Hijack the booze delivery truck’, and ‘Pay Vinny what you owe him, you fuck, or he visits your sister next’ for their ‘gun games’.

      Just ask Ralph… 😉

  4. Just trying to get them in the habit of supporting gun “buy backs.” Guns are icky, so get a safe, kind, friendly toy by trading yours in. Then later trade your Glock for a gift card.

    So if you can use the real thing to your advantage… How many stick guns or rubber band shooters do I need to trade for the Xbox or iPad? Which I can then sell on eBay and buy… Real guns!

  5. It’s not the toy guns, but the Parental skills (or rather the lack thereof) that turns children into thugs and miscreants. If any of these people had grown up in the time before society lost their collective minds, they’d know where the real problems exist.

  6. So, training and trimming the potential of the little developing humans so they can never be all they could have. That’s raising bonsai kids. It’s foot binding.

    Play is learning. Play with toys representing real things is a way to learn about the real things without all the risk of sloppy, uninformed use. You put training wheels on bikes, at first.

    — A gun is a tool, but let’s cripple kids learning about tools. “No tools for you!” You don’t need that part of your would-be life.

    — Guns are a specific kind of tool, but let’s cripple kids learning the qualities of that particular kind of tool. Keep them from knowing enough to use them, but also to think about guns clearly, “No guns for you!” You don’t need that part of your would-be life.(*)

    — Play is “play at” acting in the world, with purpose, and consequences, and all that entails. “No play agency for you!” The last thing we want is you growing into your agency, and the cost of depriving you of part of your life means nothing to us.

    — Play is theater, to live an experience and understand it, without the costs and consequences in reality. “No though experiments for you!” because we want you paralyzed by your lack of skill, overwhelmed by the sudden consequences you haven’t studied to know before they happen. You practice first aid, yes to lay in the muscle-memory, but also to confront keeping someone alive or not, with the skills of your own hands, in the moment. We can’t having you practicing stuff like that.

    — Play is trying on roles. “No acting like your life is your own.” like defending yourself in play with a gun. You might get to liking the idea.

    With great power comes great responsibility. We can’t have you learning about either with play; you might think that’s hard, but OK. So, let’s deny kids the chance to develop all of that in themselves. Their lives will be twisted and immeasurably smaller, but we’ll find the shape soothing, so that’s all that matters.

    (*) This is how you get that idiot “writer” bringing a gun home, and putting it in his mouth, loaded, just to see what it feels like. Yes, Virginia, there are tools you don’t play around with, because misused they can do a lot of damage. They’re the effective ones; exactly the ones you need to learn about.

    • Lotta folks look down on teaching tool use, the assumption being it is beneath the plans they have for their little lord Fauntleroy. Now, useless tools (namely digital entertainment) are different, and many are convinced their novelty makes them more valuable to fixate children upon.

    • /meta
      I beg your collective pardon for the sermon above. I had some life today that reinforced that people without agency are prey and victims: the neighbor girl who lives across the hall from me was roofied, assaulted and robbed last night.

      It is just plain evil training kids that their agency is bad and wrong, especially their agency and ability to protect their independent selves. Cripple kids this way and you are part owner of ever bit of evil done to them thereafter.

      /story
      The neighbor girl who lives across the hall from me was roofied, assaulted and robbed last night. They took away her agency — her ability to know and decide and act for herself — so they could take away her stuff plus 2 stitches on her forehead, 3 in the lip, another wound on her face, and a concussion.

      I wasn’t there, but I’ll give big odds that even drugged up, when the jackholes started grabbing her stuff she flailed n grabbed n tried to run. She has a great sense of her own boundaries. Her boundaries got crossed because she couldn’t stop it, not because she didn’t mind.

      Good people keeping their agency to look out for themselves is a bit of a thing for me, today.

      In the wee hours last night/this morning, I woke up eventually to persistent voices in the building entrance. My cross the hall neighbor had found her way home, somehow, roofied with no wallet, phone, cash or keys. I surmise that somebody called the cops on her getting in. The voices were the cops figuring out what was going on and what to do, with the victim / neighbor bleeding from a head injury & incoherent, resulting in EMTs and eventually “You’re going to the hospital; you’re incoherent.”(*)

      My neighbor is back from the hospital this afternoon, starting to process what happened, and pick up the pieces: missing stuff, plus some lost time, the emotional knocks of what happened & not knowing what happened, and the concrete medical consequences. No sleeping for 12 hours, hydration, take it easy, get the stitches out in a bit. And a concussion hurts & you feel like crap in general.

      So, let’s remove the decent people’s tools for protecting themselves when predators aren’t deterred by a hot take, a shunning, a devastating moral argument, or a Utopian vision. Let’s remove kids getting exposed these tools and ideas, so they’re crippled and can’t choose later. Let’s leave the predators their tools but make the good folk walk around pre-roofied. Let’s build little victim-bots out of kids, pre-roofied for life without the skills to fend for themselves because like veal, they’ve been raised hobbled, to make sweeter meat. Veal aren’t raised that way for their own sake.

      Some people just seem to need everybody unable to act on their own behalf, as this girl wasn’t, but permanently, forever, so the bad people don’t have to bother with the roofies. (Or dragging around an inconvenient arm to assault with.) “Victims, aren’t we all.” Train kids this way and you part of every evil done to them thereafter. For god’s sake let’s at least make the predators and thugs roofie us before we’re helpless, and the grown-up kids, before their helpless.

      Today, for me, this is about neither mocking the anti’s incoherence, nor an exercise in philosophy. They want to take our guns away because they don’t care about our lives, and they double-plus don’t want us able to act on our own behalf. Their “more in sorrow than in anger” pose and “We wouldn’t if we didn’t have to.” is B S. We’re expendable and less. They want us permanently roofied, at the predator’s mercy, and their own. They are evil. E-V-I-L

      I have less than no patience for this B S today.

      (*) Throughout this episode, the police – white – were absolutely professional and respectful dealing with this woman – black – incoherent, agitated, uncooperative, can’t explain what’s going on. The responding officers – male – got EMTs, and a female officer. They were careful as they could be of her exposure and dignity as her clothes were a mess.

      The officers showed discretion with use of force … I came out of my door calmly, slowly, but with my shillelagh walking stick. Nobody got spun up. Nobody even commented, or told me to get rid of it when I stood it in the corner & sat down in the hall. Of course I made sure they heard me coming, and the stick was at cane height, not port arms. It felt very rural: “You do your thing. She’s my neighbor, so I’m just gonna hang over here in case you need me, or she does.”

      They used my small assists: “Her name is…” “She’s a bit excitable sometimes, but not like this. She’s not tracking.” And just accepted what I couldn’t do or didn’t know: “Dude, I was asleep.”

      This is a gun resource site. One cop drew as he went into her apartment for some clothes; came out with clothes and the pistol holstered again. Apparently, they’d cleared the place enough to find the bleeding girl, but hadn’t cleared the whole place for real. Nobody felt the need to point at me or even put hand to grip when I showed up, even with the stick. No search. Didn’t even get eyeballed, really. They were casual about turning their backs on me once I sat down.

      The geometry would take a page to explain, but net, once I sat, I was about 4′ from events, vision blocked by a wall, hearing everything through an open security door our two apartments share. Everything I saw tracked with what I heard and was told. So, no video, but this is what happened.

      There’s a fair amount of unnecessary rousting in this town. This wasn’t that, not even close. It seemed to me that everybody made the right-enough, appropriate call every step as this developed. The only people out of hand were the jackholes who did this to my neighbor, because they could.

  7. How about instead of dissing guns you organize a “gun play center” where kids can re-enact Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Iwo Jima, and more?

    For the security of our State, that would be wonderful!

  8. Gee we all played with toy guns when I was a lad.I didn’t know any serial killers or murderers. I didn’t buy a real gun until I was in my late 50’s…sorry weirdos but I had a mom and dad who taught me right & wrong. And smoking pot 40years ago didn’t make me a junkie. Duh…

  9. How come this was never a problem before 24 hour news and until rapey clinton was president?
    This country always had guns even before it was a country even before all the unconstitutional infringments and this was never a problem. The more unconstitutional infringments they implement the worst it is . Schools used to have shooting teams and still nothing. The real problem in this country is democrats and their communist ideology they’re the cause of almost all crime. Prisons are almost completely filled with democrats and some illegals.
    But your kid playing with a toy is the problem…… yeah right.
    Next they will insist on making your kids play with queer/transgendered based toys and watch cartoons with gender bender characters so it will seem normal.

  10. Wonder if this guy would lose his mind if he knew my oldest 2 help me change oil and fix my Jeep and help me work on my guns when they need cleaned or repaired? Probably would because God forbid our children actually learn to work with their hands and build things anymore. Manual labor is something we should all frown upon I mean after all that’s why we have robots ain’t it? This is freakin sad. These fathers can’t be bothered to actually teach their sons responsibility and how to work with their hands (should they even be in the picture that long) so rather than taking the time to bond with their kids and teach these things they go and make em hand in their NERF guns, Super Soakers, and cap guns. Thus creating another generation of utterly useless males who can’t even change their own tire and are horrified by anything that goes BANG!! Dads, I think it’s time we had a talk, see your boys look to you to know what it means to be a man. So, when you are some effeminate pansy that’s never been in a fight and a lump of metal and wood or metal and plastic scares the crap out of you, then your sons will grow to be just like you. Now here we would normally start talking about mah rights!! but I’m not gonna do that because your effeminate little gender fluid offspring won’t affect my rights in the least. They will affect my children’s rights. You all talk of healing the racial divide and reconciling our differences so here’s where we start. BE AN ACTIVE PART OF YOUR KID(S) LIVES AND EXPLORE THINGS WITH THEM!!! They wanna try out guns? Okay start em off with NERF blasters and teach them the 4 commandments. Should they continue the pursuit, buy em a BB gun when they’re mature enough to handle it responsibly, then, move them up to a 22 and so on. Don’t stifle their experiences just because it makes you uncomfortable, instead share their curiosity take the opportunity to learn along with them. Hell if you don’t wanna teach them how to shoot a gun just take them to a gun range, mill around long enough and speak with enough owners (KEEP IT CIVIL) you are bound to find someone willing to teach you and your kid(s) how to responsibly use a firearm.

    This is just my 2 cents but really y’all kids are curious about anything mechanical. Guns, cars, computers, robots, and anything else really. I’ve noticed with all 3 of my kids if it’s loud and mechanical they immediately want to learn more about it. My 95 Jeep Wrangler is the perfect example of this. Loud, crude, and mechanical my kids love the damn thing they’ll pass up rides on a fire truck just to go to the gas station in Dad’s Jeep with the top off. Same with my guns they’ll put their tablets down just to help scrub carbon off an AK bolt with Dad. This is where we win the war, converting the next generation to safe and responsible gun owners. We do that through hosting youth hunts that aren’t BYOG, we form intramural rifle teams, we host youth shoots at our local gun clubs, we talk to our children’s friends about guns and teach them what their parents won’t, and we stay away from politics throughout it all. Nothing turns a kid’s ears off like talking politics and rights and such. Start out just focusing on the hunt, the fundamentals of shooting, or the gun itself and wait a few years before you start throwing out the political stuff. Let the KOTG (Kid Of The Gun) enjoy the hobby worry free for awhile then slowly introduce the political stuff.

  11. ” “Whatever you put in a child’s hands that’s what he feels comfortable with” ”

    So, just to make sure I have this right…
    GI Joe action figures turn little boys gay?
    Barbie Dolls turn little girls into lesbians?
    Do I have it right?

  12. I say just give the kids a toy gun safe and teach them the 4 toy gun rules. Teach them proper shooting technique with nerf guns and stuffed animals. Raise a generation of responsible hunters and riflemen.

    Nah, too much work.

    • It’s difficult for a liberal to teach a child something that they haven’t yet learned themselves. But boy, they sure are quick to make judgement upon something they don’t understand, aren’t they?

  13. 5-10 year old me took my cap guns VERY seriously. I much preferred the ones with the plastic rings that went in the cylinder like real cartridges, and hated the paper strip ones. My identical twin brother and I would spend all afternoon “shooting” at each other with them. 20 years on now and neither of us have had an inclination for armed violence in real life, but I suppose it could be any time!

    • Spent a lot of time as a kid trying to convert paper strip guns to plastic ring (with limited success). I like to believe I was thinking along the same lines as the designers of cartridge conversion cylinders for black powder revolvers.

      • Never thought of that! The strips were always cheaper so we always used them a lot more. I dont know if cap guns are really all that available anymore though, been a long time since I cruised the got aisles.

    • The only reason that children of liberals have violent tendencies is because they are brought up in such a strict, idiotic, asinine environment. Chances are the only ones they’ll probably want to shoot are their own parents for bringing them up as morons.

  14. If the demented liberals “communists, DemocRATs” don’t like guns then leave, move to Australia, Canada, Europe, China, get out of America we do ‘t need you, there are other countries that will accept you and your lunatic ideas. By the way there is no welfare in those countries, so you will have to work and not be a societal parasite.

  15. First the tree huggers go after toy guns, what’s next toy archery sets? Kinda hard to understand the mind of the leftwing liberal democrats. These are also the same group of people that think hunting isn’t preserving animal species and their habitat. Guess my version of (P)eople (E)ating (T)asty (A)nimals isn’t very p.c. waahhhhhhh!!

    I’m retired from the military. I grew up playing with plastic dart and cap guns. Learned the safe, ethical and propper way to hunt. Spent almost 24 years in the military. Brought up 3 kids. Taught them gun safety. Took them out to the shooting range and hunting. Still no felonies from any of us.

    So a couple of months ago I’m with my 3 year old granddaughter at a major sporting goods retailer to get a quiver and broadheads. And she sees people utilizing the indoor range. She looks at me and says “I want to shoot too! But I want a purple one (bow)”. I couldn’t help but have an ear to ear grin. I told her she would have to ask her parents if it was okay for Santa Claus to bring her one. Sure enough not a problem. Guess this all makes me a horrible father and grandfather.

    Oh yeah, I teach Hunter education classes where I live. Does this make me an ENABLER? If so I will proudly continue to do so!!

    • The Liberals that are pushing this agenda are the same ones that have corrupted the minds of the millennials. They all want to have a safe space and a coloring book and crayons and they want us to live that same lifestyle, because if they have to, then so do we. I would also say that many of these Professors at these colleges need to be removed from their position and b!tch slapped for their idiotic thought processing. But, if we don’t make a stand soon then they will win the battle because there is nobody standing up to them. My son is in the Air Force. Test pilot. I am retired military. Much like you, we are raised by a different set of standards than what these liberal wimps are trying to teach. They can go pound sand up their a$$es.

  16. Don’t forget to turn in those Pop-Tarts too, lest some pre-schooler nibble one into some scary firearm shape.
    (At least here, we might also make a dent in the excess amounts of sugar many kids eat these days!)

    Happy Motoring, Mark

    • Yeah, I remember reading last year about a Kindergarten kid or a 1st grader in school and they were looking at the clouds and the teacher wanted them to pick out objects in the clouds. The child looked up and said, “I see a gun.” Well, needless to say that they suspended the child for 3 or 5 days, something like that. Let me tell you, if they would have attempted that crap with my kid, I would have been at that school and knee deep down their throats. These teachers act like they’re politicians.

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