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Roleplayers Seek Removal of Nerf Gun Ban
An anonymous reader writes "LARP fans at Bowling Green State University may have to contend with a crippled game of Humans vs. Zombies after the University banned Nerf guns on campus. In the live-action game, players are either humans or zombies. The goal of the game is to change all the humans into zombies, or for the humans to evade capture by zombies for a certain amount of time. To defend themselves against zombies, humans may use Nerf guns. Players (most likely the human ones) are petitioning the University to lift the ban. The game had troubles back in 2006, when participating students were arrested. That issue has since been cleared up."
So they're using nerf guns. What's the big deal. Even if an innocent bystander gets caught in the crossfire, no big deal. Shouldn't they have better things to do?
I mean seriously, those are toys, they are specifically designed in a way that tries to eliminate every possibility of injury.
...when they're afraid of people getting hurt with a FREAKING *NERF* GUN!
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
If you look at the pics from the original articles, they are brightly colored, oddly shaped and very obviously toys.
pretty sure that nerf guns don't kill people. And you can argue all you want about people being the ones who kill people.. a person without a weapon is far less likely to splatter brains everywhere within seconds of deciding to hurt someone.
I'd have sued the crazy ass cop just for saying that. He could have drawn his weapon if they gun replicas and not obvious... But 2seconds from shooting you BEFORE even confronting you on it thats messed up. Endangerment to the people, have his gun revoked. (I say this being close to a number of cops who average drawing their weapons once per 25~30years ... but i'm in Canada so)
when a cop pulled up, lights flashing, and informed my friend he was about two second away from being shot before the cop realized it was a water gun.
That's just a sign that cops are trigger happy. He should have been about two seconds away from a cop yelling "This is the Police! Drop Your Weapon!". Seriously, when the biggest danger of using a toy isn't the toy itself but the possibility of being shot by the cops, is it the toy that is a danger or the cops?
We are all just people.
...a person without a weapon is far less likely to splatter brains everywhere within seconds of deciding to hurt someone.
What's a weapon? You can splatter someone's brains everywhere in seconds with almost anything.
Didn't you hear? Adulthood has been moved up to 41.
So is my thinking wrong?? Either way it sounds like a damn fun game and I sometimes feel cheated by not going to Uni (Traineeship, experience and courses make up my resume, uni would have been a waste as far as employability goes, but it sounds like a shit load of fun!)
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Consider that most universities consider themselves to be the social, as well as educational center of their students lives. Consider that many universities have roleplaying groups. Consider that many students are captive in the university, due to freshman housing requirements or visa requirements. Consider that this is a state school, paid for by public moneys. All of a sudden this gets to be a little less cut and dried. We're talking about groups of consenting adults having a little bit of fun and blowing off some steam, and even if it is a little odd, it's the sort of thing university students do, and given earlier posts in this article, it's probably one of the safer activities one can do on campus.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
Preventing a child from doing harm by blocking his access to something dangerous surely works. But it's just addressing the symptoms, not the actual problem. What is it? Simply put, the lack of "responsibility development" in the child. Some 150 years ago a 13 years old managed to be more mature than the typical 20 years old of today. The reason for that is that modern day parents have the strongly misplaced desire of shielding their children from maturity, i.e., of shielding them from the "nasty things" in the world, rather than allowing and providing for their growth at their actual potential.
Stop holding them back, start pushing them towards what they can achieve, and these accidents simply won't happen. Or, rather, if they do, they'll be actual accidents, and not the necessary outcome of keeping children clueless just for the sake of it.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Parent teaches 6 year old child about guns and gun safety. 6 year old shoots somebody. Parent is charged.
Parent hides gun in the house and tells 6 year old child nothing about it. 6 year old shoots somebody. Parent is not charged.
There is something very wrong here. Maybe we shouldn't teach our children anything, just put them in a padded room for 18 years. Then nothing can be blamed on us.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Please. I was shown how to clean, take apart, reassemble, load and fire rifles and other firearms when I was seven. My family never owned a gun locker and I knew where both the firearms and the ammo were growing up. I was also taught gun safety and basic common sense. All of this, and somehow i managed not to go out and shoot someone at a young age. Imagine that.
I'm not that good at bow hunting. Or would you have me get rid of the sticks with razor sharp broadheads on the end too?
How about people with swords? This is a geek site, there's probably a bunch of us. Those are dangerous weapons too. Luckily, your kid is probably only going to kill himself mishandling those.
A gun does not have to be a danger to people around it, it just needs to be respected as much as we teach kids to respect cars by looking both ways. If you have guns, teach your kids about them, show them how to use them safely, and store them securely (trigger locks, gun safes, ammo and gun kept in separate locations). Just remember that education is an important part of that, because it's entirely possible for the kid to run into guns somewhere else, and you don't want that to be the first time.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Hear hear!
I remember vividly when I was 5 years old and my parents took me out and taught me to shoot a pistol. It scared the crap out of me! But, I learned to do it and for my whole life (and of my siblings) there have been loaded guns in nightstand drawers and other places. We all knew where they were. We also knew WHAT they were.
Ok, so what. Well, when I was about 8 years old, playing (unsupervised) at a friend's house, he snuck into his parent's room and brought out a handgun for us to play with. I could tell he didn't even know how to hold it. I forget the exact details of what happened next, but I convinced him to put it away and we left the house until a grown-up came home. I'm pretty sure I averted a probable catastrophe that day - all because my parents had taught me how to shoot.
Put away your gut reactions and look at the statistics. Boats are more likely to kill your kids than handguns are. Swimming pools are MUCH more likely to kill a neighborhood kid than a loaded, unlocked handgun in the same house. You wouldn't have a pool in the backyard and not teach your kids how to swim, would you?
I forget the quote- something about freedom and limiting the freedoms of all of us based on the failings of the least of us. It's a good quote if someone can find it.
And, just in case you're wondering, I do not own any handguns or other guns. My kids DO play with toy guns (as do I, with the kids).
Why don't I own a (real) gun? Because I don't like cleaning them mostly. I'd have one if I had a friend who enjoyed target shooting, but I don't (at least not in this state).
But I do LIKE it that some of my neighbors have handguns in their houses, for the same reason that lo-jack works to reduce all the car thefts in a city. If thieves don't know which house has it, they have to assume there's a risk that any house could have it, and that's a significant deterrent. Again with the statistics, look at the violent crime rates in states with tight gun controls, vs. those with liberal gun ownership. No significant difference.
Buy a toy gun for your kids at http://www.backyardartillery.com/
Or get a catapult at http://www.catapultkits.com/
And teach them the science of ballistic motion while you're at it.
We need more people with an understanding of basic physics.
Gun control only keeps guns out of the "right hands". "Wrong hands" will find access to guns, regardless of the law.