On an errand today I had cause to walk through town carrying an enormous Nerf gun. I joked with a colleague about whether I would get arrested. He said it would be fine as long as I did not paint it black.
Then I spotted this in a report about Gamescom, a large computer games convention:
Because of multiple shocking events around Europe, security is tighter at Gamescom than usual. Visitors are being requested to leave bags and rucksacks at home. Bag checks are held at all entrances, so there are delays getting into the Koelnmesse.
In addition, cosplayers are being told not to bring imitation weapons, no matter how soft or outrageous they might look. They will not be allowed into the building.
It might not mean much, but it means something.
In the Nerf gun section of the toy shop I overheard one parent telling a child he was not allowed guns, and a separate conversation in which a woman was telling her friend, “some parents don’t let their kids play with Nerf guns. I don’t know why. It’s not as if you get terrorists walking around with them.”
It might not mean much, but it means something.
Awareness of potential threats is good. Banning anything that “looks” like a weapon is the bureaucratic answer requiring no intelligent thought. Searching bags is reasonable, banning them is not. Cosplay weapons should be checked every time they come in the building, but should not be banned to cover someone’s ass. Many of the cosplay weapons are unique to those characters and are as much a part of the costume as the clothing.
I’m guessing my (antique?)Black plastic Battery powered UZI (crap, MAYBE MAC 10) water gun would not go over well?
Things can’t be all that bad. This looks almost exactly like the toy cap gun I used to run around the neighbourhood with as a lad.
Reminds me of my desire to build a particolored AR-15, with every part a different brighht/godawful Cerakote color.
This is a desire that I just got, reading this post, though I’ve long thought it’d be amusing to paint a cheap Nagant neon pink.
Sigivald:
Here ya go…
I vaguely recall a story about a kid having a toy gun confiscated on a plane. The thing was, the gun was one that came with some kind of action figure and was about an inch long. I can’t say that I blame the cabin staff for failing to apply even the smallest scrap of common sense, because you can bet that they have to report to a small minded superior who will be a total dick about it.
Serious question, how difficult would it be to make a real weapon look harmless by disguising it as a toy?
Following Columbine and other highly publicized school shootings, toy weapons were all the rage in the media and the K-12 establishment in the US a couple of decades ago. Many daycare centers instituted policies prohibiting kids from bringing these toys to play with at “school”, and many parents (mostly mothers) frowned upon them at home as well, including playdates. Of course none of it was due to safety concerns – rather, the motivation was to erase as much as as possible of the awareness the kids may have had of the very notion of guns. That motivation itself was (still is) based on the notion that guns are evil and should be eliminated from society.
Stony, I would bet not that hard, depending on the creativity of the designer. In fact I can think of one or two unpleasant mods right off the top of my head. :>(
. . .
Rob, I had one quite like that myself as a kid. Heck, most of us did, back in the ’50s. I miss cap guns. Of course, they weren’t made to terribly high durability standards, so most of us spent a fair amount of time exploding caps with a hammer on the sidewalk. Sigh…those were the days. Thanks for the reminder. :>)))
Alisa: Quite so.
Most toy guns seem to come with some bright orange cap in the end of the barrel, I was always under the impression this was to stop some trigger happy cop from making a mistake.
It’s not as if you get terrorists walking around with them.
based on the notion that guns are evil and should be eliminated from society
Many of the worse terrorists attack seem not to involve guns, either box cutters and airplanes, or pressure cookers, or lorries, or just plain old explosives.
Part A
‘Most toy guns seem to come with some bright orange cap in the end of the barrel, I was always under the impression this was to stop some trigger happy cop from making a mistake.’
Brilliant thinking right ??
It took some little #$%^&* about 10 seconds to figure out that a black magic marker eliminated the orange muzzle / tip and, viola. ‘real’ looking gun again !
Part B
‘Serious question, how difficult would it be to make a real weapon look harmless by disguising it as a toy?’
The reverse of Part A is also true. Paint ( nail polish works fairly
well !! ) the outside of the muzzle orange and now a police officer thinks he’s dealing with a toy !!!
The problem solving ability of some bureaucrats is breath taking.
The bureaucratic solution is far worse than doing nothing.
It is odd how many weapons the armies have look like toys compared with 1945.
Little plastic things.
I was a vendor at Comicon in Miami on the first week of July of this year. There was absolutely no fuss about cosplayers toting fake weapons about, even ones that might be taken as real weapons. For example:
Why did it not take my link?
Let us try one more time.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1244902558895056&set=a.242403049145017.69970.100001259713184&type=3&theater
Yow! You look like one ba-a-ad dude, Jack Sparrow! (Whoever that may be. *g*)
Awesome. :>)))
This year at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, despite the weapons policy, I was almost hit two different times by idiots with “fake” weapons (once by an Anime Expo volunteer!), and I saw a guy with a real aluminum baseball bat. It seems there are no adults in charge at Anime Expo, and a zero-tolerance for weapons/props is the only way to keep the children (including children over the age of 18) from hurting anyone.
It means when foolish feelings overrule any rational sensibility the result is indistinguishable from insanity.
Please note the sheer number of children expelled or suspended from school for the crime of doodling something that can, perhaps, be interpreted as a gun.
Listen, Buster, just you watch how you chew that PB sammich!
BS that is disgusting. Someone deserves to be given a right bollicking for defacing that firearm. 🙂
I always like the “What kind of message does it send…?” objection to guns (even fake guns); those who pose the question never seem to realize they’ve made guns a First Amendment issue, too.
I was at the capital building in Denver one day, watching a mom and her kid playing on cannon in front of the building. The kind of message that event sent to me was, the peace and prosperity I now enjoy was a direct result of people with large guns who were willing to risk themselves and blow people to bloody bits to make it so.
If an islamic terrorist is shot with a “Hello Kitty” AR, I understand that they still get their service-virgins, but they’re all mousy-looking thirty-year-old guys who live with their parents.
If you’ve ever hung around in farm country, you’ll recognize the John Deere rifle:
http://gunrunnerhell.tumblr.com/image/20574025210
Or, if you like Star Wars:
http://d2kyvj3kvr3yw0.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMAG0486_zpsb024a192.jpg
But the multicolored have been done:
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d172/jason9298/group2.jpg~original
When this demented system passes away the young will have to rebuild.
I hope our follies are clearly remembered – so the same mistakes are not made by future civilisations.
Doesn’t gamescom feature games that, er, include weapons?