"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Gun Hysteria

by Lee

California:  Rasing the next generation of children who are totally ignorant of, and thus fascinated by, firearms.

Five-year-old Martin Patiño threw his toy machine gun into a trashcan marked “armas no,” Spanish for “no guns,” and he promptly picked up a coloring book to replace it.

Martin was one of about 30 Alisal Community School kindergartners from four classes Wednesday who traded in their fake guns for gentle toys such as stuffed animals and Play-Doh.

Kindergarten teacher Myriam Kennelly came up with the idea of the “peace toy trade” as a way of letting kids and parents know that guns of any kind are not permitted at the school.

“We just want parents to be aware,” Kennelly said. “They think that the gang problem begins in the high school, and that’s not true.”

About 100 kindergartners assembled in the school’s cafeteria for the peace toy trade.

In preparation for the event, students used crayons to write anti-gun messages on a roughly 15-foot paper banner that also said, “Las Pistolas No Mas! Queremos La Paz” or “No More Pistols! We Want Peace.”

“I just wrote ‘pistols are bad,’ now can I read a book?” said Moises Alvarez, 5, in Spanish after writing on the banner.

The anti-gun, no-violence message is just as important to parents as it is to youngsters, Kennelly said.

All they have done is create a whole class full of kids whose only exposure to guns is going to be the violent images on TV, and in movies and songs.  Rather than do something crass like teach them gun safety they have opted for the ignorance is bliss approach.

Odd, isn’t it, that children have been playing with fake weapons since, oh, the beginning of time, but it’s only in the last few decades that this has seemed to be the cause of a rise in violence in children.  It couldn’t be the skyrocketing divorce rate, or the destruction of the family, or the crushing burden of a life beholden to the welfare state… no.  Why look for actual solutions when you can do something trite and meaningless like throw away plastic toys?

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