**
DCG posted: " Hayward school to sponsor toy gun exchange Mercury News:
An elementary school held a toy gun exchange Saturday, offering students a
book and a chance to win a bicycle if they turn in their play weapons.
Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hi" Respond to this post by
replying above this line
New post on *Fellowship of the Minds*
<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/dcgere/> Another school
that must have got the “guns bad”
memo<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/another-school-that-must-have-got-the-guns-bad-memo/>
by
DCG <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/dcgere/>
[image:
nerfgun]<http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/nerfgun.jpg>
*Hayward school to sponsor toy gun exchange*
Mercury
News<http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23406432/hayward-school-sponsors-toy-gun-exchange>:
An elementary school held a toy gun exchange Saturday, *offering students a
book and a chance to win a bicycle if they turn in their play weapons*.
Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill
<http://str-haywardusd-ca.schoolloop.com/>maintains *that children who play
with toy guns may not take real guns seriously*. "Playing with toys
guns, *saying
'I'm going to shoot you,' desensitizes them, so as they get older, it's
easier for them to use a real gun*," Hill said.
At Saturday's event, called Strobridge Elementary Safety Day, a Hayward
police officer *will demonstrate bicycle and gun safety*, and the Alameda
County Fire Department is sending a rig and crew to talk about fire safety.
Fingerprinting and photographing of children will be offered, with the
information put on CDs for parents to use, if needed, in a missing child
case. All youngsters attending will be given a ticket to exchange for a
book, Hill said.
Every child who brings a toy gun will get a raffle ticket to win one of
four bicycles, Hill said. Hill said he got the idea for the toy gun
exchange from a photographer, Horace Gibson, who takes students' school
pictures and who expressed concern about the spate of shootings of young
people by police in Oakland.
Hill said police are rightfully fearful of being shot when they encounter
so many armed suspects, and there have been cases nationwide where police
mistook a toy gun for a real one.
A gun rights advocate questioned the idea that playing with toy guns
desensitizes children to real weapons. "*Having a group of children playing
cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians is a normal part of growing up*,"
said Yih-Chau Chang, spokesman for Responsible Citizens of California, a
group whose goal is to educate the public about the facts behind gun rights.
"While the intentions are obviously good on the part of the school
administration, *this doesn't really educate children about guns or gun
safety*," he said. "Guns are used in crimes, but they are more often used
in defensive ways which prevent violent crime from occurring in the first
place."
[image: Come and get
it!]<http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/nerfgun2.jpg>
Come and get it!
Chang also questioned whether toys can look like real weapons. "Toy
manufacturers are forced to paint guns in bright colors, usually orange or
yellow, that make it virtually impossible for an officer to mistake it for
a real gun," Chang said.
Hill, though, noted a recent case where a little boy in Kentucky used a
rifle that was painted pink and accidentally killed his sister. Some toy
weapons that he has seen have only a red tip to indicate they are not
actual weapons.
"Some of the guns I've confiscated, if they're stuck down in a waistband,
the average person would think it's a real gun," Hill said. "I could easily
see one of our sixth-graders wanting to fake out someone at a 7-Eleven by
walking in there" with a toy gun. "They would think it's funny, but it
could turn into tragedy."
Hill hopes the toy gun exchange idea catches on. "*If we want older kids to
not think guns are cool, we need to start early*," he said.
And there it is in a nutshell: convince children at an early age that guns
are bad. Nanny State alive and well at this school. Obviously Principal
Hill received the
memo<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/student-sanctioned-for-bringing-fake-gun-near-school/>
.
DCG
*DCG <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/author/dcgere/>* | June 9,
2013 at 3:30 am | Tags: Strobridge
Elementary<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?tag=strobridge-elementary>|
Categories:
Children <http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=34928689>,
Education<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=15005908>,
Gun Control/2nd
Amendment<http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/?cat=67540812>| URL:
http://wp.me/pKuKY-m0N
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