And Speaking of Idiots...

...we've got a bumper crop. I'm playing catch-up from being on the road, but this may be my very favorite antigun story in a long while. From the Pawtuckett Times in lovely Rhode Island:

CENTRAL FALLS -- It’s been in the pipeline for awhile but the city’s first-ever Toy Gun Bash, an anti-gun violence event sponsored by Attorney General Patrick Lynch, will go off without a bang on Saturday, April 2.

Channel One Director Angelo Garcia, who spent months coordinating the event with the Attorney General’s office, local police and various anti-violence organizations, said the program is an opportunity to teach children and parents about the dangers of real firearms, while showing them fun and practical alternatives to "violent" and "competitive" play -- nipping the problem of gun violence at the bud and the root, as it were. The fact that real guns are frequently mistaken for toys by children is another concern, according to Lynch.

The spoonful of sugar in this cautionary exercise is the Bash-O-Matic, a wacky toy-gun-crushing device designed for Patrick Lynch by the folks at Big Nazo Puppets.

Bash-O-Matic? I mean, I know Rhode Island is the smallest state, but I had no idea that "smallest" also applied to the mental capacity of some residents. I love the equating of "competitive" with "violent," too. And what does the television director Garcia (or has perhaps missed a curve on the function of journalism in a free society) suggest as alternative play?

The Rhode Island Doubledutch League will be teaching kids the lost art of jumping rope, one of many non-violent, non-competitive activities Garcia said he would like to see catch on.

Perhaps Garcia should consider talking a length of that rope and...well, never mind.