Kids Play With Toy Gun, Parents Lectured by Local Cops

The Truth About Guns
VERBATIM POST

A near pants-soiling situation for local law enforcement took place on the highways of Southern California earlier this week when a motorist spied what turned out to be a toy M16 in a passing minivan. Seven – yes, seven – police and sheriff’s department units soon took up the chase. One can only assume the local SWAT unit was already engaged on another call…

From the latimes.com blog:

When authorities caught up to the vehicle in a park-and-ride in Chino Hills, they saw two boys in child safety seats. On the lap of one of the boys was the plastic green-camouflage rifle, its orange tip flagging it as a replica.

But simply chalking the situation up to a call by an overly-sensitive onlooker in another vehicle wasn’t in the cards. No, the local yokels had to make sure the innocent kids and their parents knew they were the real problem.

With no real weapon to worry about, the responding officers gave the parents a lecture about how their children need to be careful when playing with a pretend firearm.

Yes, indeedy. Never mind that it’s perfectly legal, even in California, to own an actual AR. As long as you have the properly neutered magazines, that is. Also never mind that that the two tikes were perfectly within their rights to play with their plastic gun in their parents’ car if they damned well pleased.

“We take that pretty serious,” said Deputy Warren Toy, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “We definitely educated [the parents] not to point even a toy gun at somebody because you never know if the other person had a real gun and would seek to engage.”

Thanks, Deputy Dawg. We’re quite sure mom and dad will be careful to keep junior’s toys safely hidden at home from now on so as not to offend polite society and prompt another full-on cavalry charge. Maybe now you can run along and dig up a sense of humor.