Looking Out For You!

[Valkorado]

Maryland lawmakers have proposed a series of new gun control laws they say would strengthen a sweeping set of regulations enacted in 2013, including one that would all but ban the possession of air rifles and many toy guns.

The new bill proposed by Baltimore delegate Jill Carter would bar the sale, possession or use of so-called “imitation firearms” and would impose a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison for any violation. The bill defines imitation firearms as “a toy, a device or an object that substantially duplicates or can reasonably be perceived to be a firearm or a handgun.”

There is no so-called “grandfather clause,” so according to the legislation, anyone who owns a toy or an air gun that’s defined as an “imitation” would be violating the law.

http://www.grandviewoutdoors.com/guns/gun-rights/maryland-law-would-ban-bb-guns-and-toy-replicas/?utm_source=newsletter_030416&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[Jess from VA]

Anyone ever happen to notice that professional politicians, wholly lacking the ability to even understand let alone deal with the real problems facing our country (economy, banking, employment, business, energy, foreign relations, the VA, healthcare, etc), just continually come up with silly sh!t, presumably to make it look like they are busy doing something (anything) for their constituents, and to get their name in the papers?

And of course, the silly sh!t is generally driven by PC and political ideology and in no way related to common sense or the actual knowable facts, and of course it always costs a bunch of money and requires an increase in taxes (and with any luck will require a whole new bureaucracy).

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Reminds me of an old Mr. Bean episode:    Jesus is coming.... look busy.

[gordonv]

What about a de-activated firearm? Something like a sub-machine gun. For display purposes. Is it considered a "toy" or a gun?

Just take little Johnny's toy gun away and give him a de-activated one instead....????

[Jersey mike]

No more cops and robbers? Cowboys and Indians? What about playing Army?

And I guess using your fingers to make a gun is out too?

Geeze...when I was a kid I had an M1 wood and steel knock off rifle. It didn't shoot but the slide worked and the trigger had a click to it. My friend's dad made him a flame thrower out of a old metal sprayer and some hose and a old torch. We had cool plastic army KA Bars, and metal Colt .45's army helmets, army shovels and all other kind of good stuff for hours of going out on patrol in the woods.

[Jess from VA]

Mike, I also grew up playing army with the local guys.  Had a plastic but realistic Springfield bolt rifle, the bolt worked and it clicked (and a box of other stuff, like the belt buckle with the cap-gun derringer built in that would swing out and fire when you pushed your belly out).  We had red and blue armies (3-5 guys each) and crawled in the weeds, ran around the neighborhood, climbed trees, built forts in the woods, and shot each other all day.  I learned my earliest field craft at this game, before Boy Scouts.  

Made hand grenades out of good Canadian Black Cats and crab-apples too (until sadly apprehended).  

[Jersey mike]

I forgot about the hand grenades. Our woods were chock full of scrub pines so we would gather them up and and coat them in mud and let them dry to throw at each other and lob at the enemy.

Those were the days, playing in the woods all day going home wiped out from crawling around, feet wet from the swamps and hands,arms and even your face scratched up from the sticker bushes. Thinking we were cool with our army belts and canteens, I can only imagine what we looked like walking down the street with all our gear heading into enemy territory, trying break behind enemy lines. Somewhere along the way we grew up.

[Valkorado]

Smiling reading your stories.  Same great childhood neighborhood memories here. 

We had all the replica and cap guns, and also lobbed cherry and black cat mud bombs at each other!  Pretty organized warfare, really.  Graduated to firing Roman candles, great fun.  That ended when a friend dad's horse stall got torched.  Thankfully I wasn't there that night, and no equines were killed.  Did my share of plinking and varminting with the ol' Crosman Powermaster 760 too.  Was Dead Eye Dick with that thing!

[Bighead]

Smiling reading your stories.  Same great childhood neighborhood memories here. 

We had all the replica and cap guns, and also lobbed cherry and black cat mud bombs at each other!  Pretty organized warfare, really.  Graduated to firing Roman candles, great fun.  That ended when a friend dad's horse stall got torched.  Thankfully I wasn't there that night, and no equines were killed.  Did my share of plinking and varminting with the ol' Crosman Powermaster 760 too.  Was Dead Eye Dick with that thing!

I had a powermaster 760. Let's just say there were very few birds to be heard in my little town.  we would take a length of PVC pipe 1/2" cover one end with duct tape and put a bottle rocket in the end light the fuse and drop it down the pipe and it made a dandy rifle when we were taking over someone's fort that was built along the creek bank  we would build them on either side and have war with one another  there would be a different kid go home bleeding or skinned up everyday

[Oss]

Great stuff,

Before moving to the country in 8th grade we mostly had to go vertical in our games, climbing fire escapes, drainpipes, jumping from roof to roof 6+ stories off the ground coming down a block away to sneak behind the other team or escape playing "manhunt"
and jumping turnstile to use the elevated subway to watch Yankee day games from the 161 St Station platform

Funny how I didnt develop fear of heights till much later

The woods in back of my folks house used to go back a few miles to a reservoir  bogs, a few animal trails and lots of hornet nests  if you werent careful

Now 500 ft away are houses