Saturday, September 15, 2007

Water Pistol Prizes confiscated

Albany Times-Union, September 13 2007

A Common Council member criticized the Albany Public Library for handing out water pistols as prizes for students who read four books this summer.

Council member James P. Sano, a Democrat, said the library's Pine Hills branch sent the wrong message to children at a time the city has formed a task force on gun violence.

"They must have been out of rubber knives and candy cigarettes that day," Sano said as he waved the toy gun during the council's caucus last week. "They couldn't give out books or bookmarks?"

Tim Burke, the acting director of the library, said it was a mistake that won't happen again.

"They buy these bulk packages of prizes that included a couple of those," he said. "It was just a few out of many, many prizes we handed out."

Sano said he took the water pistol from a 9-year-old boy while working as a lifeguard, and the child told him where he had received it.

"I was surprised and disappointed that this was a prize that was given away," he said. "We shouldn't send mixed messages to kids that we give a replica of a firearm."

The issue is especially sensitive after Shahied Oliver, 15, of Albany was gunned down Aug. 18 at a birthday party in the Skyline Gardens Apartments in Arbor Hill.

Another 15-year-old, Nahjaliek McCall of Green Street, has been charged with the murder and pleaded not guilty last week in Albany County Court.

This year's statewide theme for the library reading program was "Get a Clue at Your Library." Burke suspects the water pistols were meant to go along with the detective theme, but said he wishes they were not given out.

"We certainly should have been more sensitive about that," he said.

The reading program aims to help keep kids off the street and out of trouble, Burke said. This year, 800 children and teenagers participated, reading a total of 3,400 books.

"It was a wonderful, successful summer reading program that is meant to teach kids to do important things instead of hanging around with guns and drugs," he said. "We would like to take that back if we could."
Council members stealing toys from children! Equating water pistols with firearms! Nullifying the rewards of a summer reading program! This is so wrong on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. Associating squirt guns--cheap, fluorescent-colored pieces of plastic enjoyed by millions for generations--with gun violence, does absolutely nothing to help the problem. I really can't argue this except to boil it down to bullet points (thanks Thisbymaster from Fark)
  • Giving out summer toys as prizes: GOOD
  • Lifeguard that took a water gun out of a kid's hand: DUMBASS
  • Common Council: DUMBASS
  • Rewarding children that read: GOOD
  • Getting children outside to play with water guns: GOOD
  • Complaining about water guns because of unrelated gun incidences:DUMBASS
  • Teaching children that they have no rights and should just sit inside getting fatter: DUMBASS
  • People who freak out just because they see the word "gun": DUMBASS
I'm nearly as terrified to think about a country run by hardcore communists like these as I am thinking about a country run by hardcore fascists like I've written about before. Talk about living in fear.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're a dumbass if you can't see how a toy gun is directly linked to sending the message to children that guns are ok. He never said that giving rewards were bad; he simply said that the reward was inappropriate and suggested that the library give rewards like bookmarks. Also, he took the squirt gun from the child because he was lifeguarding IN A SCHOOL, and I don't know if you've ever been to a school, but such objects are against policy and he has a legal obligation to take it away from the student. Furthermore, he is ovbiously not a dumbass if he could get elected to the Common Council. So maybe you should have read a few more books when you were younger, and spent a little less time playing with water guns because you my friend just got hosed. YOU: DUMBASS.

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