Free Republic

If Hawaiian State Rep. Scott Saiki gets his way, guns will be outlawed in Hawaii. Toy guns for kids, that is. Adults can still buy toy guns. Presumably, it is still safe to give them to children. The bill has had its first reading and has been referred to the judiciary committee where, hopefully, it dies.

PROVIDENCE — Dominic Johnson, a 10-year-old fourth-grader with a fledgling Mohawk, brandished his black, long-nosed toy gun and caressed the muzzle appreciatively. “It’s like a shotgun mixed with a rifle,’’ he said, as his mother, April, told him to stop pointing it at nearby children. Soon it would be junk. Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and...

azfamily.com's Marissa Wingate reports a teen went hiking in full military fatigues with a fake gun and prompted women to call 911.

A woman who was robbing a pharmacy at gunpoint was shot by a police officer early Thursday morning after she refused to drop a weapon that turned out to be a toy, San Antonio police said. Officers responding to a robbery in a Walgreens at 6901 San Pedro arrived about 1:00 a.m. to see the female suspect wearing a ski mask and holding a gun as she ordered the manager to give her money from the pharmacy cash register. Police said the woman did not comply with orders to drop the weapon from Officer Roy Naylor and other officers. “At...

Boy, 12, with toy gun shot, killed by police W. Memphis officers were on stakeout BY JACOB QUINN SANDERS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE A West Memphis police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old boy late Friday night, mistaking the child’s silver toy gun for a real handgun, authorities said Saturday. The shooting occurred about 9:53 p.m. while two officers were on a stakeout hoping to break a string of convenience-store armed robberies near North 24th Street and Goodwin Avenue. The officers waited in the dark parking lot of the Steeplechase Apartments just south of Interstate 40 and Interstate 55. They saw two...

Two Potomac teens were arrested for flashing a toy gun at a woman last week... (snip) At about 9:55 p.m. on Thursday, a 29-year-old Rockville woman reported that two boys had aimed a gun at her while driving near the intersection of Westlake Drive and Tuckerman Lane in Bethesda... (snip) The brothers were arrested and charged as juveniles with first-degree assault and released to the custody of their father, police said. Under state law, first-degree assault is a felony that can carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Using a toy weapon in a crime carries the same...

Third grader back in school Suspension canceled over G.I. Joe pistol 02/27/04 HANNAH WOLFSON News staff writer A third-grader suspended for bringing a tiny toy gun to class was back at Birmingham's Sun Valley Elementary School on Thursday and will have the incident wiped from his disciplinary record. Nine-year-old Austin Crittenden expected to be out of school for at least a week and was awaiting a Monday hearing to determine his punishment for bringing a plastic G.I. Joe handgun to school earlier this week. But on Thursday, school officials changed their stand, allowing him back to class. School Superintendent Wayman...

A third-grader at Sun Valley Elementary was suspended this week for bringing a G.I. Joe toy handgun to school. Austin Crittenden, 9, and his family say the school in eastern Birmingham went too far by sending him home for bringing a tiny plastic handgun that accompanied a G.I. Joe action figure. "It's about an inch long," said Vicki Stewart, the boy's grandmother and guardian. "(The principal) had to tape it to a piece of paper to keep from losing it." The length of the suspension has yet to be determined, said Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman. Possible punishments for...

RESTON -- An off-duty Fairfax County police detective arrested a 15-year-old boy at a Starbucks in Reston over the weekend after the boy pulled out a handgun that turned out to be a toy. Police say the boy walked into the coffee shop about 7 pm Saturday and pulled a gun from his waistband. The detective, who was a customer inside the store, then pulled his weapon and ordered the boy to drop the gun. Authorities say it's not clear what the boy intended to do with the gun, which turned out to be a nickel-plated toy. The suspect was...

CAN A student get suspended from school for bringing a toy? He can if it’s a toy gun, even one that can’t possibly be mistaken for a real firearm. In Hampstead last week, two eighth-graders were given 10-day suspensions for playing with a plastic pistol on the school bus. The toy was loaded with plastic pellets, which the boys threw at the other children. The suspensions came shortly after an 8-year-old Sandown boy was suspended for 10 days for carrying an old, inoperable pistol in his book bag. “We concurred it was more serious than what was initially presented,” Assistant...

Terry Wilson-Spence thinks administrators at Spokane Public Schools may have jumped the gun when it comes to her 8-year-old son. The third-grader, along with two other boys, was suspended Friday from Bemiss Elementary School for bringing toy guns to the northeast Spokane school. But, according to Wilson-Spence, the toy guns her son carried in his pocket were for GI Joe action figures. The guns are from only 1 inch to 3 inches long -- half the size of a pencil. "I don't think any child would look at it and be threatened," Wilson-Spence said. But the school district is standing...

Where's Charlton Heston when you need him? All across America, 12-year-old boys should be grasping their toy chests and vowing, in the words of the former National Rifle Association president, "From my cold, dead hands."The recent scare caused by a toy gun that closed down a congressional building has prompted Brooklyn Democratic Congressman Ed Towns to declare a new urgency to passing his proposed ban on "realistic looking" toy guns. His bill would "ban toys which in size, shape or overall appearance resemble real handguns." Next Towns will be after "realistic looking" daggers, bows and arrows, battle axes and lightsabers...

Police in Washington say a major security alert on Capitol Hill turned out to be a false alarm triggered by a Hallowe'en costume. Police initially said they were hunting two intruders armed with a revolver who had breached a checkpoint at an office building belonging to the US House of Representatives. A security guard at the Cannon Office Building reported that a man had gone through the X-ray machine with a suspicious object in his backpack. But police later explained that two women staff members bringing in Hallowe'en costumes had caused the panic. "It was just an unusual set of...

Searching for a lone gunman

A female worker brought a Halloween costume and a plastic gun into a congressional office building on Thursday, prompting an extraordinary shutdown of the House of Representatives, police told local television. The woman walked away from the security checkpoint before an officer was able to stop her, Chief Terrance Gainer told WRC-TV. He said there was no danger. The Cannon Office Building was shut down more than an hour, as police searched for two suspects — a man and a woman. Officials had said the man ran after security checkpoints detected a gun in his bag. The incident prompted the...

A Halloween costume and plastic gun are the culprits in today's shutdown of the House of Representatives, Capitol police say. "Capitol police also said they had apprehended a suspect, according to an aide who said he heard the information via a pager system operated by security officials," the Associated Press reported. The hullabaloo lasted two hours or less.

LORAIN -- A 9-year-old boy was arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed Saturday because he was waving a toy gun over his head while seated on a bench outside a store, according to a Lorain police report. His mother, Tamyka Saunders of Sheffield Lake, said her son, Thomas Clark Jr., told Lorain police when they approached him outside a Broadway business that the gun was a toy. An officer aimed his weapon at the boy's head, ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and arrested him for juvenile delinquency by reason of inducing panic, according to the police report. Saunders, 28,...

9-year-old arrested for waving toy gun MICHAEL C. FITZPATRICK , Morning Journal Writer 10/28/2003 LORAIN -- A 9-year-old boy was arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed Saturday because he was waving a toy gun over his head while seated on a bench outside a store, according to a Lorain police report. His mother, Tamyka Saunders of Sheffield Lake, said her son, Thomas Clark Jr., told Lorain police when they approached him outside a Broadway business that the gun was a toy. An officer aimed his weapon at the boy's head, ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and arrested him...

Parents and other East Harlem residents protested a controversial toy gun giveaway outside a neighborhood school Thursday. After testifying against a City Council ban on all toy gun sales in the city, the Manhattan branch of the Libertarian Party handed out toy guns to children leaving P.S. 72. "This is a freedom issue" said Jim Lesczyski of the Libertarian Party. "This is about kids" freedom and parents" freedom to make choices, and not about government interfere with those choices." "This law won't save one life. It won't prevent one crime. All it will do will impose unnecessary costs throughout society"...