This makes me want to run out and buy a couple water guns for my girls.

I think they're old enough for super soakers this summer...

A May Day activity I do with the kids and their friends is they whittle their own arrows and use a toy bow, or make one out of a green branch and twine, and have a shooting contest to elect the May King and Queen and Princess (we have two female royales since usually the girls out number). We hire a teen to supervise so the parents can hang out and have drinks.

When I read these articles I feel like I live on a different planet.

Woke signaling. It’s bound to get even crazier in the next four years.

The police aren’t allowed to do their real jobs anymore so they turn to revenue collecting which is then spent on this kind of nonsense. Your tax dollars at work.

Just a reminder that one cannot "buy back" what one never sold. They are buying it back with your own tax money.

I could never sell my weapons to the government. They don't pass my background check, because they are tempermentally unsuited and mentally unsound.

We have a 10 yo grandson living with us. He got the Harry Potter library, a Hot Wheels track, as well as various other toys. As a stocking stuffer, we got him a 200 pack refill of darts for his nerf gun.

Guess what he played with first.

When I was a kid 55 years ago, we used pea shooters and had battles with dozens of kids. No one ever got shot by the cops for having a straw and a mouthful of beans. Biodegradable bullets! We also had rubber band guns.
The biggest cause of murder is single parent households and second is alcohol. Boys without father are much much more likely to get in trouble with the law. Most robberies involve alcohol--makes it seem like a better idea than it is. Guns are way down the list. According to the US national crime stats, about 30% of murders involve something other than a gun (hands, blunt object, knife). Some men can kill with a punch or a single blow with a baseball bat. Are we going to get a hand buyback?

So how many guns are gun buybacks actually taking out of criminals' hands?

Not very many. As you point out, they're mostly picking up firearms that need to spend quality time with a gun smith.

The functional ones sold are traceable back to serious crimes. Putting them into the buy back mucks up the chain of ownership, since these are "no questions asked".

I'm with Amy on this. If some police officers kill children for having toy weapons, the right answer is not to take away the kids' toys, it is to train police to ask questions first and shoot later -- and back it up with firing plus criminal penalties.

I'm guessing the better alternatives resemble something like this toy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCG3WgYxPkI

@Jdgalt,

Hmm.. Nah. This is evolution at work. This weeds out the idiots out of the gene pool.

"Johnson said it's important for children to learn at a young age the dangers of real guns."

Sort of true; but, not quite - teach young kids about the "seriousness" of guns, teach them about the power of guns, teach them that guns are to be used in a respectful and safe manner.

But, for Pete's sake do NOT teach them that "oh, guns are scary, guns are bad." That just tells them that guns are something forbidden. And, we all know that forbidden fruit is all that more enticing.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that some of these same folks who are so against guns would be up in arms if schools emphasized "abstinence" in sex education classes claiming that the kids are going to have sex anyway so we should prepare them with accurate knowledge. Yet, the "abstinence" approach is exactly what they are proposing for gun safety education. Idiots!

I'd bet dollars to donuts that some of these same folks who are so against guns would be up in arms if schools emphasized "abstinence" in sex education classes claiming that the kids are going to have sex anyway so we should prepare them with accurate knowledge. ~ charles at December 25, 2020 9:29 PM

These are the folks who want to wish out of existence anything that scares them.

The big shots try to hold it back,
Fools try to wish it away
~ Rush ("Big Bang")

"LaMont Johnson, a village trustee and school board president."

Of course he is.

Now accepting wagers on the size of his sweater vest collection, with a side bet on bow ties.

Charles, there's a slight but significant difference.

If you live in a town where legal guns aren't that common or acceptable, you have to go through certain channels to get one - and PAY for it. Of course, communities with active shooting or hunting clubs are very different.

But if you're a boy who wants sex without paying a significant amount of money for it, chances are all you have to do is be willing to work on your social skills to get a LONG-term partner. (If all you're interested in is one-night stands, that will likely show in all sorts of unappealing ways - and make you unpopular.) If you're a heterosexual girl who wants one-night stands, chances are all you need to do is consent.

And, as I've mentioned, one reason people might object to taxpayer-funded abstinence classes is: if PARENTS can't manage to guilt-trip their kids into abstaining, why would some stranger who visits the school do any better? If the abstinence teachers can't do any better than parents, why should they get paid?