Happiness Is a Warm Gun…

I grew up in a house with nine siblings. NINE. At one point, in the 1970′s, we were all together in the same house–and with only one bathroom, I might add. Christmas was always a significant production in our home and my parents always made sure that we had a great holiday even if we didn’t have all that much money.
As the two youngest children, my sister Neddie and I (she’s two and a half years my junior) were always the first ones up on December 25th. Well, it’s probably better stated that we were the first two up at 5am. Then again at 6am. Then again at 7am. It was usually about the third attempt in waking my parents that they realized that we were probably going to die if we didn’t get down the stairs to open our gifts, and they let us go down into our family room.
Now, after about two hours of trying to be quiet and the peeking down from the top of the staircase to see how many presents we could see, we almost flew down those stairs to get our hands on the loot that Santa had brought. There was always one gift that wasn’t wrapped and standing up in the corner for us to find first.
Toy M-16 machine guns.
My folks raised us to live our lives right and respect others, but they clearly had a respect for the axiom that children are on this earth partly to entertain their parents. They bought us the toy machine guns for one reason, and one reason only…
…to be an alarm clock for our older siblings.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith not only suggested but they encouraged Neddie and me to race through the house firing our toy weapons in the air and telling our older siblings to get their butts out of bed. Imagine being in a restful sleep with visions of sugar plums dancing in your head, only to be awakened by the horrific sound of a toy machine gun. We did this for years, it seemed and–at least to me–it was one of the more memorable events surrounding Christmas morning in our house.
So, this year based on a fine sense of nostalgia, I thought I’d go out and buy Neddie a toy machine gun for Christmas. I figured we could smile, laugh and remember the times our older brothers and sisters wanted to throw us out the nearest window into a snowbank.
That is, until I actually tried to find a toy machine gun.
I went first to Wal-Mart figuring I’d be able to find one there. Nope.
I went then to a different Wal-Mart and didn’t find one there, either.
I then went to Toys R Us and when I didn’t find what I was looking for, I asked someone.
I greeted the lady and apologized for my asking what was going to be a stupid question and then asked her where I might be able to find a toy machine gun.
She looked at me like I had two heads…
…and that the other head resembled Charles Manson.
You see, while I was going through Toys R Us, I found just about every kind of violent toy on the market:
Chewbacca’s Bowcaster
Laser pistols.
A Batman Begins toy Ninja sword.
Toy paintball guns.
Toy battle swords.
Toy space swords.
Toy bows and arrows.
I found everything EXCEPT toy machine guns and I pointed this out to the very nice representative for Toys R Us.
She told me that they didn’t carry toy guns and I was stunned. I pointed out that they had every other violent toy on the market but not a toy machine gun. It was at that moment that a manager who was within earshot came up and said, “That’s because cops don’t tend to shoot people with toy bows and arrows.” He didn’t say it to be funny, he said it in absolute disgust and in near disbelief that I would ask for such a product.
Not wanting to start a debate (or a fight) in the middle of a toy store, I thanked them both for their time and made my way to the registers to pay for the item that I was buying.
That’s when I noticed the same manager who lectured me on toy bows and arrows following me through the store. I stopped several times to browse products I had absolutely no interest in at all, just to be sure. Each time he stopped and waited for me to begin walking again.
In other words, he treated me like some sick criminal who’d just come into his store asking for real weapons and live ammunition.
(For those of you wondering…yes…I did wave to the nice gentleman on my way out the door to the Official SUV of the ConBlog.)
Today I was struck by the absolute ridiculousness of the liberal agenda. They can’t ban the guns, and they can’t ban the BB guns, so they have managed to get the TOY guns removed from the stores because they’re too violent. Swords aren’t? Bows and arrows aren’t? Toy paintball guns aren’t?
Let’s be real, here. Guns carry a negative connotation with some segments of the population and that’s why they’re not in the stores. Hell, there’s no three day waiting period for a sword. I don’t have to register my long bow. I had many toy machine guns as a kid and I turned out just fine (and, I might add, I haven’t been shot by the cops as the Toys R Us manager asserts).
Apparently guns don’t kill people, toy guns kill people.
I just bet that my older siblings wish this development had occurred years ago so they might have been able to sleep in on Christmas Day for once.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com