If the town council of Cleveland had been like the City Fathers of Philadelphia, little Ralphie Parker might still be pining for his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model B-B Gun. 
And not because he “might put somebody’s eye out with that thing.” But, because he might – just might – grow up to use the real thing to prevent a criminal from snuffing somebody else’s life out.
Such is the hard Left’s relentless war on the Second Amendment.
While a judge has placed an injunction on the recently-enacted Philadelphia (real) gun control measures (because of that bothersome Constitutional protection), the City Council is now considering a proposal which would ban toy guns – in an all-out effort to frighten children and stigmatize guns:
“[Councilwoman Donna Miller is] concerned that children playing with them as toys become comfortable with what seems like the real thing: ‘We don’t want them to get used to the idea of using a weapon.’”
So, kids would apparently have to do without their Roy Rogers R-90, Dale Evans George Schmidt gun, or the 1775 Parris Freedom Pistol when they go off to fight train bandits or the Red Coats. Or in Ralphie’s case, without his air rifle when he takes aim at Bad Bart and his fellow thugs pouring over the back fence.
It is duplicitous and disingenuous to pretend that this is anything other than a transparent attempt to discredit the legitimate use of arms guaranteed by right under the Constitution. The sponsor of this legislation may pay obligatory lip service to the tortured idea that they’re banning toy guns to prevent them from being used to commit crime.
The truth is, of course, that if they were concerned about adults using toy guns for criminal purposes, they’d ban them for adults. They are banning toy guns for kids knowing full well that they’re never going to use them to hold up local supermarkets.
Little Ralphie was just a fictitious figure. And his concerns about guarding the backyard fence were simply flights of fancy. But if Philadelphia’s politicians succeed in stigmatizing the Second Amendment by targeting little children, the barbarians at the gate may make easy prey of that city’s innocent, law-abiding citizens for generations to come.
ALG Perspective: Notwithstanding the fact that there is no wave of kids (or even adults) using toy guns to commit crimes, this is just yet another example of the Nanny State running amuck. On the surface, Councilwoman Miller says she is trying to prevent fake gun crime, but when pressed, she gives her true motivation: she doesn’t want kids playing with toy weapons because she doesn’t like guns, period. And neither, apparently does she have much use for that dusty, old document called the Constitution. Let’s call this what it is – pure brainwashing. As the Philadelphia City Council spiritual mentor once opined, “I begin with the young… With them, I can make a new world.”
