When you think of gun buyback programs, the last thing that crosses your mind is toys.
But one elementary school in the San Francisco Bay Area had a genius idea. They would offer students a chance to trade in their toy guns for books or a chance to win a bike. It’s the first-ever gun “buyback” program for fake guns…and we love it!
The program was held on Saturday at the Strobridge Elementary Safety Day and local police and fire department representatives were also on hand to talk to the children about gun and fire safety.
“Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them,” said Charles Hill of Strobridge Elementary School in Hayward, “so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun.”
A spokesman for the gun-rights group Responsible Citizens of California took issue with the event, saying “playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians” was “a normal part of growing up.”
“While the intentions are obviously good on the part of the school administration,” said Yih-Chau Chang. “Guns are used in crimes, but they are more often used in defensive ways which prevent violent crime from occurring in the first place.”
Chang went on to note that most toy guns are painted bright colors “that make it virtually impossible for an officer to mistake it for a real gun.”
Recently there have been a handful of gun-related deaths at the hands of children who pick up real guns out of curiosity, or because they believe the guns to be toys.
Hopefully programs like these will teach our children that guns are dangerous…mentally and physically…toys or real.
SOURCE: Gawker
