Councilwoman Wants To Ban Toy Guns

Philadelphia Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller is concerned about the gun violence in this city.

Crowd: How concerned is she?

Why, she’s so concerned with the gun violence in this city she’s going to ban the sale of toy guns!

(Pause for laughter.)

Exactly, that’s not funny. Because, of course, it’s true! It’s buried in this Friday Inquirer City Council roundup: “Just how to determine which toy guns meet those characteristics will be discussed in hearings, Miller said. Her legislation includes detailed exceptions, including toys that are made of see-through plastic or have bright coloring.”

Hey, wait, that doesn’t even sound that awful. Oh no, has a City Councilwoman finally introduced stupid nitpicky legislation that’s well-thought out in advance and essentially bulletproof? Oh well. I guess I could complain about time wasted in hearings, but it’s not like that time was going to be used for something more important. I’ll have to investigate more.

The legislation isn’t up on the website yet, but hopefully the wording will be better than it was for the voluntary toy gun sale moratorium last fall, which began: “The City Council Of Philadelphia Calls Upon The Responsible Merchants Of Philadelphia – During These Troubling Times, With Gun Violence At An All Time High - To Implement A Voluntary Moratorium On The Sale of Toys Guns In The Philadelphia Stores.” (Other than that, it wasn’t that bad, surprisingly. Donna Reed Miller clearly does not want to be made fun of for this.)

For more restrained commentary on this issue, please head to the place where I first read about this, Domelights. An example: “I’m sick of ‘it’s society’s fault, it’s the gun’s fault, there ain’t enough jobs…..etc. etc.” Ha, how dare politicians attempt to end poverty and improve society.

Wilmington Councilman To Waste Time, Money

Usually, when people really care about stupid shit, it’s confined to them and their supporters. Take, for example, these people planning on a boycott of stores that sell toy guns. I, for one, cannot imagine caring about what kind of water pistols KB Toys sells. (When I hear people angry over toy guns at stores, I mainly think about whether products such as, say, the Nintendo Zapper would trigger a boycott.)

NBC 10’s Tim Furlong reports that “despite a September resolution from City Council asking stores to remove the guns from their shelves, some stores like KB Toys in the Franklin Mills Mall sell guns in all colors, shapes and sizes, including a realistic-looking machine gun and handgun purchased by Furlong.” Ooh, a toy gun sting operation!

Okay, so Philadelphia City Council did pass a resolution, but those people waste time like it’s their job. (Because it is.) But it wasn’t binding and KB Toys was free to continuing selling Super Soakers and more realistic-looking toys, too. But that’s not the case in Wilmington, where a City Councilman is planning on banning saggy pants.

Much like the councilwoman in Trenton who proposed similar legislation, the proposed ordinance would fine people up to $250 for pants that this one councilman didn’t like the style of. His reasoning is not the weird saggy-pants-are-a-gateway-drug argument in some locales where this has popped up, but simply because… ah… well, let’s let the councilman, Mike Brown, explain:

Brown defended his stance by saying, “Listen, I know under the first amendment everybody has their rights, but i have rights too.”

Although the right to wear saggy pants (the 22nd Amendment) is being eroded, fortunately we still have a lot of other of our civil liberties. Well, okay, hmm. How’s this: Fortunately, I can still make fun of this dude proposing the law online. It’ll be debated next month, which I can only assume will be completely awesome.