Liberals Want Toy Gun Control Now

Forget about restrictive laws that curtail and limit the purchase, ownership and use of real firearms. Liberals have their eyes set on a new set of guns in need of regulation: toy guns.

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In the wake of a tragic shooting in Cleveland, Ohio last weekend where a police officer shot and killed a young boy playing with a toy gun, a Democratic state lawmaker is calling for more regulation of toy guns. The 12 year-old reportedly pulled the toy gun from his waste when officers told him to raise his hands. The incident occurred at a playground.

According to news reports, the toy gun was missing the orange cap on the barrel that distinguishes toys from working firearms. The bright marking device is mandatory on toy guns sold in stores.

The incident has inspired state Rep. Alicia Reece, a Cincinnati Democrat, to propose legislation requiring, “BB guns, air rifles and airsoft guns sold in Ohio to be brightly colored or have prominent florescent strips.”

Reece’s plan is based on a similar proposal in California, and comes after two shootings in Ohio and one in California in the past 13 months involving toy guns carried by victims in fatal police shootings.

In pushing for her legislation, Reece never notes that both the 12 year-old boy and the 22 year-old man involved in the Ohio shootings refused to put down their toy guns when ordered to by police according to news stories. Further, Reece doesn’t explain what would prevent a toy gun owner from purchasing a can of black or brown spray paint and promptly ridding their toy of its bright or florescent colors.

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This isn’t the first time Reece has proposed curtailing gun owner rights. When Ohio debated and passed its stand your ground law, Reece was quoted calling the bill the “Kill at Will” law. She also worked with fellow Democratic lawmakers to torpedo the legislation.

When the lawmaker doesn’t get her way, she’s not above throwing a few political or rhetorical punches. In 2002 as the vice mayor of Cincinnati, Reece boasted, according to one political columnist, that “I have 150 firefighters who will do anything I ask them to do” when she was upset at a critical comments made about her. “If you won’t convince Kathy Wilson [the critical commenter], then I’ll send firefighters to convince her,” Reese reportedly said.

In 2010 at a rally for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Lee Fisher, Reece boasted that in her legislative district “we as Democrats rose up” and ran a Tea Party leader “out of there.”

It appears unlikely that Reece’s plan will go through the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature, but it is yet another example of a public official seizing on a gun-related death to propose further gun regulation.

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