Hand grenades: a two way street
[ by Charles Cameron — toys as weapons, weapons as toys, appearances, can be deceptive, ethnicities too ]
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Before there were the realities we now know as “virtual reality” and “real life” there were the two known as “real” and “pretend” or “make-believe”.
Confusing pretend for real can be harrowing enough, as we saw this morning:
Hand Grenade Toy Prompts Evacuations At Ontario International Airport « CBS Los Angeles http://t.co/qpZi3QRyac
— Crystal Cruz (@CrystalCruzCBS) August 12, 2015
but the reverse has even more dire potential:
Bomb alert over hand grenade used as a toy http://t.co/PM8HIpkh #YEPleeds @MarkLavery1 #pontefract
— Vicki Robinson (@VickiMRobinson) May 9, 2012
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For the record, toy grenades are a a regular feature of the news these days, see for instance:
26 June 2015, Bomb disposal team called to toy grenade in Coatbridge 19 Octpober 2014, Toy grenade puts Newport News neighborhood on alert<
Get your Toy Grenades Battery Operated for Pretend Play on Amazon:
Pull the grenade pin, press bar and throw! Estimated Delivery Date: Aug. 14 – 19 when you choose Expedited at checkout
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Watch out, Staten Island:
BREAKING NEWS: Police looking on Staten Island for men possibly with assault rifles. MORE: http://t.co/nyFoiJbEjg pic.twitter.com/Abf8DTsjrl
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) July 17, 2015
But then again..
when is an assault rifle not an assault rifle?
‘Assault rifles' in Staten Island were paintball guns: NYPD – NY Daily News http://t.co/Ysyy5pXhxL
— Krishna Mungur (@mungurk) July 20, 2015
and come to that,
when is a paintball more than a paintball — when is it a weapon?
Teens arrested in Staten Island paintball attacks: One of the attacks, on an Orthodox Jewish man, was investig… http://t.co/LfEw9g5gdj
— David Bar-Lev (@DavidBar_Lev) July 20, 2015
and when is the reason not just a paintball, but a scarf?
Don't fool yourselves. It wasn't the paintball guns that shut down Staten Island. It was the head scarves #islamophobia
— Wisco (@Wisco) July 18, 2015
— and if that’s not enough, is skin color a difference that makes a difference?
So open-carry clowns are allowed w/ long guns in Target but #JohnCrawford was shot dead in Walmart holding a toy gun? pic.twitter.com/BK30NybXDU
— Dana Fairbanks, M.D. (@dcfairbank) August 12, 2015
Ah yes.
Target and Walmart — another nice pairing that gives that last tweet just a touch of extra impact!
