I don't get the fascination some people have with gun-shaped things for everyday use. It just seems like a bad idea all around. The last thing you want to do is answer the phone and have the police yell for you to drop the weapon.
But while I don't get it, some people do, and one Cleveland-area official is trying to ban one particular product in the city.
And, to make it even more idiotic, he's trying to pull at the heartstrings of people by naming his proposal after a kid who was shot while holding a completely different product.
bout a year ago, Cuyahoga County Councilman Michael J. Houser Sr. spent $80 of his own money buying gun-shaped lighters off the shelves of a local beauty supply store so they wouldn’t be sold to kids. Now he wants to eliminate the products countywide.
Houser announced on Tuesday that he is introducing new legislation next week that would prohibit retailers in Cuyahoga County from selling or displaying novelty lighters designed to resemble pistols, rifles, shotguns, or other firearms.
He’s calling it the “Tamir Rice Act,” named after the 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was fatally shot by police in 2014 while holding a pellet gun that officers mistook for a real weapon.
In a news release, Houser stressed that gun-shaped novelty lighters serve no practical purpose yet can “create dangerous confusion with life-altering consequences,” especially for youth. Removing them, the release said, is “a commonsense public safety measure that reduces unnecessary risk while preserving access to ordinary consumer products.”
“What happened to Tamir should never happen again,” Houser said of the legislation. “Every city has a store selling gun-shaped lighters. Every city has children who deserve to be safe.”
The thing is, these lighters, while pretty stupid-looking, aren't dead ringers for firearms. They're brightly colored with patterns that look nothing like what you'll find on a firearm--yeah, even the custom jobs that can go from Boba Fett to Hello Kitty in theme--and bear no resemblance to actual firearms.
Tamir Rice's shooting was beyond tragic. He wasn't a threat to anyone, but that pellet gun in his hand sure as hell looked real. If you knew nothing else about the case and watched the video of what happened, you'd never blink at the idea that the police were in the right. It looked, for all the world to see, like a real gun. The fact that he didn't put it down when instructed didn't help, but since he probably didn't think he had a gun, I understand both sides of this awful situation.
These aren't like pellet guns. These are nothing like that.
It also seems that in Ohio, you have to be 18 to buy a lighter, which means 12-year-old kids shouldn't be running around with a lighter in the first place, especially one shaped like a handgun going to a Pride parade.
So what about them serving no practical purpose? Well, they light things on fire, so there's a practical purpose, even if Houser doesn't approve of the shape.
I'm sorry, but while I don't think kids should be running around with gun-shaped lighters, that's also not happening as far as anyone can tell. This is a local official trying to manufacture a crisis so that he can swoop in and solve it.
Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder just how many stores would have stopped selling them if someone hadn't kept coming in and buying all of their stock. I mean, I think the lighters are kind of dumb looking, and they don't fit in the pocket for crap, so I wouldn't buy one on a dare, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. How many stores might have stopped selling them voluntarily had Houser not kept buying them?
Either way, though, this is just another official trying to grab headlines and attention over what sure looks like a non-issue.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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