From it’s most likely location, none other than across the pond. This story is loaded with gems, and it seems that this sort of behavior has become par for the course for the Empire these days.
POLICE have today warned that anyone carrying a ball-bearing (BB) gun in public risks being killed by armed officers.
Well, that’s a bit harsh. I mean, I know it’s true, and if you point a gun (toy or otherwise) at the fuzz then you’re an idiot. The article continues, and actually mentions the Airsoft Hysteria phenomenon, albeit not by name.
a stern warning was issued to make people aware of the similarities in appearance to a real gun and the panic that can be caused. (emphasis mine)
Ah yes. Because your toys are scary looking, and the concept of a human being wanting to play with a (gasp) gun is just too shocking for the English psyche to grasp. Which of course means if calling the cops in hysterics, who respond with SWAT teams.
The Airsoft Hysteria reflects quite accurately on the “scary looking guns” hysteria in the US. People who want to ban “assault weapons” just want to ban them because of how they look. If you take that same mentality to its extreme, you end up with people going into a panic because of an Airsoft pistol.
I just don’t like a culture of fear – and that’s the end product of having hoplophobes run the show. We end up living in fear for our lives, and living in fear of whatever object we’re told to fear. By creating scary boogeymen, the gun grab (or Airsoft banners) can utilize the single most effective tool in their arsenal: fear. Fear that you children will be shot by police while playing with their toys is no different that fear that your children will be gunned down by madmen with “assault weapons”.
Playing to fear, the old gun control cry of “for the children” or “blood in the streets” is their most effective ploy – and it’s also the only ploy that they really have. I normally avoid such polarizing statements as the following, but I do firmly believe that if you support gun control, you are supporting living in fear.
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