Toy Gun Buyback For Snowflakes

Participation ribbons were also handed out.

Hempstead, New York, officials, citing concerns for the safety of children, not only warned parents off buying toy guns as gifts this Christmas — but also took the over-the-top step of hosting a toy gun buyback event.

Welcome to the new USA, home of the pansies. Summer camps, for crying out loud, used to provide BB guns to kids to fire at mounted balloons.

Now we’re confiscating squirt guns and foam-firing plastic rifles?

“We don’t want the kids playing with guns,” said Hempstead Village Trustee LaMont Jackson to WABC-TV. “Guns are dangerous.”

Yes. But toy guns are not. They’re, um, toys.

“Saying no to guns is important,” Hempstead Village Mayor Don Ryan chimed in, the Blaze reported. “Even toy guns.”

Well, if safety is a factor, then saying no to knives would seem important, too.

The FBI found 40 murders due to knives or cutting instruments occurred in Arizona in 2016; in California, that statistic stood at 280. Other states saw varying rates of murder-by-knife that year, ranging from 20 in Kentucky to 48 in Georgia to 52 in Maryland.

Death by bicycling is a biggie, too.

“In 2015,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, “over 1,000 bicyclists died and there were almost 467,000 bicycle-related injuries.”

While adults between the ages of 50 to 59 suffer the highest death rate due to bicycling, children between the ages of 5 and 14, as well as young teens between the ages of 15 and 19, “have the highest rates of nonfatal bicycle-related injuries,” the CDC reported.

Shouldn’t something be done here?

Surely, a bike buyback program is warranted.

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