Saturday, November 14, 2009

Buying Toy Guns

The Los Angeles Times published a wonderful article about the misadventures of an author trying to buy a toy gun in New York City for a photo shoot.


The scheme was to buy a toy 9-millimeter Glock, the service weapon carried by the FBI. They make great fakes, don't they? Don't people rob banks every day with toy guns?

It was a beautiful night, so I walked down Broadway, from the upper 70s to the superstore Toys R Us on 42nd Street. When I asked the uniformed toy concierge where the guns were, she looked astounded, as if she hadn't heard that question in 20 years.

"You can't buy a toy gun in the boroughs of New York," she said, then added: "You could go to New Jersey."

Now, I have to say this. I am just sick and tired of New Yorkers saying disparaging things about New Jersey. Who do they think they are? Don't they realize New Jersey ranks even higher than they do on the sensible-gun-laws scale?

Instead of going to Jersey to buy a toy gun, which probably wouldn't have been all that easy, she came up with a good solution right there in NYC. Companies exist which supply prop guns for the theater.

So the following morning, after a feverish search on the Internet, I discovered the Centre Firearms Co. They stocked prop Glocks, but as I learned, you can't just walk in and rent one. The Administrative Code is so airtight that you need a letter of intent stating exactly what you plan to use the prop for.

This meant a letter from my publisher, followed by a dash to an address in the west 30s that turned out to be the Empire State Building. After stumbling through lobbies and doorways, I found a horrifying freight elevator that took me to an office with a massive steel door, where I was buzzed into a long, shadowy room filled with racks of dusty weapons. Rifles, muskets, M-16s. Beyond it lay another chamber, half-dark, filled with more. A depressed-looking man stood behind the counter.

He scrutinized the letter and filled out an elaborate form, warning that I must keep it with me when carrying the gun, in case I was stopped. Stopped? At a police roadblock. Or a metal detector. He offered me two choices of weapon: a prop cut out of a block of wood for $35 a week or an actual Glock (disabled for firing) that cost $10 more. You could not tell the difference, so I took the block of wood.

What's your opinion? Are all these ridiculous laws doing any good? Well, what do you think? Did you ever hear of anyone committing a robbery with a toy gun? Do you think that happens more often in New York or places where you can buy toy guns easily? Did you ever hear of the police shooting a kid who was holding a toy gun? Do you think that happens more often in New York or in places where you can buy those toys easily?

Please leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. "Now, I have to say this. I am just sick and tired of New Yorkers saying disparaging things about New Jersey. Who do they think they are?"

    Huh, I didn't read that as disparaging. I read it as New York was the silly one. Banning toys is about as silly as it gets. That is of course until you get to the part where this idiot paid $35 to rent a piece of wood for a week. For $35 I'd sell them a piece of wood that they could keep and show all of their friends. I'd sell them a wooden assault rifle for $35. In fact. I have a couple of eight foot 2x4's lying out back, I could make them some Anti-Tank weapons before breakfast. They can have two for $50. What a deal.

    I wish there were more of these fools around me than in New York and New Jersey. That would be too much of a drive for me to make a few bucks off of morons.

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  2. This is both sad and hilarious. It's like having a slice of the UK right in your own backyard. I hope i'm no longer among the living when idiocy like this spreads to the rest of the country.

    "Are all these ridiculous laws doing any good?"

    Too me it sounds like a solution in search of a problem. I can't remember there being an epidemic of cops shooting kids who were holding toy guns.

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  3. Did you ever hear of anyone committing a robbery with a toy gun?

    Yup. Someone I know prosecuted a guy who committed numerous armed robberies with a airgun that looked pretty much like this but with a smaller slide.

    BTW - The other weapon used in those robberies was a sawed off .22caliber rifle. Shouldn't that be impossible, since it's a Federal Felony under NFA laws to have a long gun with a barrel under 16 inches without having it registered and paying the $200 tax stamp?

    Committing that felony didn't stop him, nor did the felony of illegally concealing 2 firearms, nor the law against using a firearm in the commission of a robbery, and nor did the fact that robbery itself is a felony.

    Amazingly, you somehow think that restricting not only guns, but toy guns is going to stop someone from committing felony robbery when he thinks nothing of committing numerous felonies prior to the commission of the robbery itself.

    We have a word for that kind of thinking MikeB, it's called delusional.

    http://www.airgunsbbguns.com/Daisy_717_Powerline_Single_Pump_Competition_p/day717.htm

    The police do sometimes shoot "kids" with toy guns. Happens in Philly every now and then. If the cops approach you and you are dumb enough to pull out something that resembles a gun they are going to shoot you

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  4. Mike W., If you ever have a family of your own, I know you have nieces and nephews, but I think you need kids of your own to understand how ridiculous this statement is.

    "If the cops approach you and you are dumb enough to pull out something that resembles a gun they are going to shoot you."

    Kids who play with guns aren't "dumb," they're just kids.

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  5. MikeB - There's a reason I put the word "kids" in quotes.

    Someone who's 15+ years old and who is approached by the police should have the common sense not to pull a gun or anything that looks much like a gun out and point it at the cops.

    There's a huge difference between a bunch of kids playing with super soakers in the backyard and teenagers walking the streets with bb guns or black airsoft guns.

    Pulling out a gun (toy or not) and pointing it at a uniformed police officer is flat out dumb and categorizing that as "playing with guns" is disengenuous on your part.

    They may be kids, but they still need to understand that actions have consequences and should understand that pointing guns / toy guns at the cops is very likely to get you killed.

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