The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum

When I encountered this article, I was tempted to assume it's a satire. Unfortunately, it isn't:

HAYWARD -- An elementary school will hold 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 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 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.

Ahhh, California: The Land of Fruits and Nuts. But the Golden State has long been a trendsetter for the Left -- and the Left controls the government-run schools.

Did you notice that "fingerprinting and photographing of children will be offered" -- ? The rationale: "missing child" searches. Children do go missing now and then in these United States, though not nearly as often as the fear-mongers would have us believe. But under what circumstances would a record of a missing child's fingerprints assist in locating him? Does anyone really expect a kidnapper to allow his victim's fingerprints to be matched against a missing-persons database? As for the identification of a juvenile corpse, there are several other ways...but those other ways wouldn't assist the police in amassing a database of Americans they have no business having in the first place.

But let's return to the central thrust of the above: conditioning children against guns. Note that the program described will barter books and raffle tickets for the toy guns. Maybe those items will prove more attractive to the kids than I imagine. But however that turns out, I'd love to know what books are being offered, whether the kids get to choose among them...and who preselected them, and according to what criteria.

If this idea catches fire and spreads to other parts of the country, I'd like to see the NRA, GOA, et alii whip up a counter-campaign that will lay the motivation bare and explicitly counteract it. Perhaps free seminars on gun safety, specially designed for children, would do the job. Given that approximately half of all American households have one or more firearms in them, such a campaign could prove very popular indeed.

As I've written before, the three pillars upon which a free society must rest are:

• The education of its citizens, particularly as regards the history of political forms and the thinking behind its own constitution;
• The ability to communicate freely, privately, and without interference;
• The possession of weaponry adequate to overthrow the government or to resist its usurpations, should the necessity arise.

At this time, all three are under heavy attack. Indeed, the Left practically owns American classroom education. The recent NSA and PRISM scandals suggest that private communication might soon be a thing of the past, sacrificed to the dubious needs of "national security." There is yet time, and there are yet alternatives, that might rescue education and communications from Leviathan's grip. But may God help us if it succeeds in disarming us, either forcibly or by cleverly conditioning our children. Weapons in private hands are the one and only obstacle to tyranny upon which a people can rely. There is no imaginable substitute.