So I'm at a playground/park in Edison and I see these two kids walkin along, probably around 13 years old. Look like normal kids until they break out two airsoft guns and start taking shots at a squirrel. After the squirrel runs away they put the airguns back in their pants and continue walking along the playground until they see another squirrel. So they "take cover" behind this small utility building, which is right next to a basketball court where some kids are playing. Now picture this in your mind, kids playing basketball at like 25 yards away and two kids are right behind a building taking out guns out of their pants trying to get a squirrel. If a cop had been driving by at the time they would have jumped out of the car guns drawn.

 

What would you have done?

 

Call the cops?

Lecture the kids?

Let it go?

 

I let it go, but how about you?

Call 911. Let the cops have them.

I probably would done same as you and feel guilty for not lecture them. I wouldn't lecture them to save the hassle of being treated as an old crazy guy by a couple of punk kids.

you should have screamed at them in some crazy tone about only hunting and shooting what they plan to eat...

you should have screamed at them in some crazy tone about only hunting and shooting what they plan to eat...

 

Or that...

I hesitate to call the cops on things like this, it ads to the "guns are bad" paranoia and having a cop roll up on 2 kids arms near a park could end bad. I would have taken a moment to talk to them and discuss the wisdom on their actions.

I hesitate to call the cops on things like this, it ads to the "guns are bad" paranoia and having a cop roll up on 2 kids arms near a park could end bad. I would have taken a moment to talk to them and discuss the wisdom on their actions.

It isn't that "guns are bad"... the myth of guns being bad is perpetuated when stupid people do stupid things with guns. If someone who didn't know that these were toy guns called the cops, it may have ended badly. As a knowledgeable and responsible gun owner, calling 911 and telling the dispatcher that these are a couple of kids playing with BB guns may save their lives. And, it may teach them a thing or two about firearms responsibility.

It isn't that "guns are bad"... the myth of guns being bad is perpetuated when stupid people do stupid things with guns. If someone who didn't know that these were toy guns called the cops, it may have ended badly. As a knowledgeable and responsible gun owner, calling 911 and telling the dispatcher that these are a couple of kids playing with BB guns may save their lives. And, it may teach them a thing or two about firearms responsibility.

 

 

you mean like this..

 

"OMG there are two gang members carrying guns in the park!!!!!!!! they are hidden in their waste bands! I just saw one of them pull the gun out and point it at an animal... OMG send cops fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

 

next thing you know every cop and department within 5 miles has everything locked down for absolutely no reason.. LOL

you mean like this..

 

"OMG there are two gang members carrying guns in the park!!!!!!!! they are hidden in their waste bands! I just saw one of them pull the gun out and point it at an animal... OMG send cops fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

 

next thing you know every cop and department within 5 miles has everything locked down for absolutely no reason.. LOL

Pretty much exactly the opposite of that.

Pretty much exactly the opposite of that.

 

 

I was kidding.. I forgot the "sarcasm tags"... sorry

I would have attempted to convince them that what they were doing was pretty stupid and could get out of control real easy. Try and keep their names off of the government paperwork if possible.

Call the cops, they can put down the coffee and donuts long enough to round up the two perps.

You never played war when you were young? Never shot at an animal with a toy?

 

Walk away and let it go. Not your concern.

should have told them not to shoot the squirrels that they could get in alot of trouble to stick to targets..

 

this could get real bad for them if cops get involved.

So I'm at a playground/park in Edison and I see these two kids walkin along, probably around 13 years old. Look like normal kids until they break out two airsoft guns and start taking shots at a squirrel. After the squirrel runs away they put the airguns back in their pants and continue walking along the playground until they see another squirrel. So they "take cover" behind this small utility building, which is right next to a basketball court where some kids are playing. Now picture this in your mind, kids playing basketball at like 25 yards away and two kids are right behind a building taking out guns out of their pants trying to get a squirrel. If a cop had been driving by at the time they would have jumped out of the car guns drawn.

 

What would you have done?

 

Call the cops?

Lecture the kids?

Let it go?

 

I let it go, but how about you?

 

As an airsofter I hate when kids do dumb stuff like that. Thanks for lecturing them, hopefully they listened, I mean we have a hard enough time with people wanting to ban our sport as it is, It really steams my clams knowing these kids probably bought this stuff from some cheap vendor, and then decided to act stupidly like this, not even considering they were going to hurt an animal.

You never played war when you were young? Never shot at an animal with a toy?

 

Walk away and let it go. Not your concern.

 

 

I am only 33 years old... but can say this..

in 1995 (high school) one of my teachers found a knife in my jacket pocket when they went to move it from one chair to another..

he took the knife..

no police.. no paperwork.. no nothing..

gave it back to me at the end of the year..

 

can't say the same would happen today.. point being the world has changed quite a bit.. take 5 minutes out of your time.. set them straight.. if you feel like it.. OR let it go on.. and maybe some class II shows up and wants to turn it into something way bigger than it actually is.. next thing you know people have records for ridiculous ****..

 

while "minding your own business" is a good policy.. your community IS your business.. and what goes on within it IS your concern..

 

just my 2 cents.. you know..

As an airsofter I hate when kids do dumb stuff like that. Thanks for lecturing them, hopefully they listened, I mean we have a hard enough time with people wanting to ban our sport as it is, It really steams my clams knowing these kids probably bought this stuff from some cheap vendor, and then decided to act stupidly like this, not even considering they were going to hurt an animal.

 

 

he decided to "do nothing"..

 

while I am admittedly not familiar with the "ballistics" of air soft toys.. I question if you could hit a moving squirrel OR even if you did.. if it would cause any "harm" to the animal..

Probably a lecture about responsible hunting and how if a wacko neighbor saw them and called the cops that they actually get shot because those airsoft guns look so much like real guns. I might also throw in how real gun owners have such problems already in this state already and how they could possibly lose their ability to buy "real" firearms in the future for some momentary youthful indiscretion isn't worth it.

 

An invite to the range with their parents permission of course might also get them to actually listen to what you are saying...

OR even if you did.. if it would cause any "harm" to the animal..

 

OMG you could have put the poor squirrel's eye out /sarcasm

I'm somewhere in between talking to them and letting it go. On one hand, it's none of my business. I also don't know who their parents are, and don't want some crazy mother running up to me and hit me with her purse because she thinks I'm trying to kidnap her kid. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to let it go, then find out that they got shot because the cops mistook the fake guns for real guns. If I said anything, it would simply be for safety concerns of the young boys.

OMG you could have put the poor squirrel's eye out /sarcasm

 

I don't think that a BB/pellet breaking a squirrel's ribs/arm/leg etc is beyond the realm of possibility. If you want to hunt something that's fine, but I doubt either of the two kids is going to put a wounded animal out of it's misery. If you want to hunt something, kill it as cleanly as you can and don't let it suffer needlessly. It might sound silly to some people given that it's a squirrel we're talking about, but if squirrels don't count, where do you draw the line? Is it ok to shoot ball bearings from a slingshot at a rabbit, without the knowledge/ability to follow a blood trail? How about deer? I could care less about one squirrel, but nothing should have to suffer a long death because some punk doesn't realize the consequences of his actions and lacks the balls to do the right thing.

I'm somewhere in between talking to them and letting it go. On one hand, it's none of my business. I also don't know who their parents are, and don't want some crazy mother running up to me and hit me with her purse because she thinks I'm trying to kidnap her kid. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to let it go, then find out that they got shot because the cops mistook the fake guns for real guns. If I said anything, it would simply be for safety concerns of the young boys.

 

 

while "minding your own business" is a good policy.. your community IS your business.. and what goes on within it IS your concern..

In this specific scenerio the way the two kids were "hiding" behind the building overseeing the basketball court. if i were passing by and saw this I would definitely think a shooting was about to go down. What is worse, if a cop were driving by and saw it, guns would have definitely been drawn.

So I'm at a playground/park in Edison and I see these two kids walkin along, probably around 13 years old. Look like normal kids until they break out two airsoft guns and start taking shots at a squirrel. After the squirrel runs away they put the airguns back in their pants and continue walking along the playground until they see another squirrel. So they "take cover" behind this small utility building, which is right next to a basketball court where some kids are playing. Now picture this in your mind, kids playing basketball at like 25 yards away and two kids are right behind a building taking out guns out of their pants trying to get a squirrel. If a cop had been driving by at the time they would have jumped out of the car guns drawn.

 

What would you have done?

 

Call the cops?

Lecture the kids?

Let it go?

 

I let it go, but how about you?

 

Let it go man, we played like that when we were kids, well not airsoft stuff, don't think they were invented yet, but BB and pellet was our toys back then.

 

Now if you knew the kids you might say something, but if you could clearly see that they had no intension of doing harm to another person walk away.

 

Harry

I don't think that a BB/pellet breaking a squirrel's ribs/arm/leg etc is beyond the realm of possibility. If you want to hunt something that's fine, but I doubt either of the two kids is going to put a wounded animal out of it's misery. If you want to hunt something, kill it as cleanly as you can and don't let it suffer needlessly. It might sound silly to some people given that it's a squirrel we're talking about, but if squirrels don't count, where do you draw the line? Is it ok to shoot ball bearings from a slingshot at a rabbit, without the knowledge/ability to follow a blood trail? How about deer? I could care less about one squirrel, but nothing should have to suffer a long death because some punk doesn't realize the consequences of his actions and lacks the balls to do the right thing.

 

If it was a cheap springer airsoft gun, the possibility of harming anything is slim. If it's a high FPS one, then definitely.

 

Personally, I would have informed the kids as to the potential issue with this and ask them where their parents were and if they knew they were doing this on what I assume is public land. I would then recommend one of the airsoft fields in the area where they could go to play safely.

he decided to "do nothing"..

 

while I am admittedly not familiar with the "ballistics" of air soft toys.. I question if you could hit a moving squirrel OR even if you did.. if it would cause any "harm" to the animal..

 

It depends on the quality of the airsoft gun. I had a tooth shot out by one. They can knock eyes out and stuff if you're not careful. Again, depending on what parts you have inside, you can get a range of up to 250+ feet with an AEG, even more for some of the top of the line guns.

It all starts with shooting squirrels and cats and before you know it, they are kidnapping people and eating them! Didn't most serial killers start out this way? I'm just saying!

I don't think that a BB/pellet breaking a squirrel's ribs/arm/leg etc is beyond the realm of possibility. If you want to hunt something that's fine, but I doubt either of the two kids is going to put a wounded animal out of it's misery. If you want to hunt something, kill it as cleanly as you can and don't let it suffer needlessly. It might sound silly to some people given that it's a squirrel we're talking about, but if squirrels don't count, where do you draw the line? Is it ok to shoot ball bearings from a slingshot at a rabbit, without the knowledge/ability to follow a blood trail? How about deer? I could care less about one squirrel, but nothing should have to suffer a long death because some punk doesn't realize the consequences of his actions and lacks the balls to do the right thing.

 

 

I see SARCASM is LOST on YOU... :thsmiley_deadhorse:

You never played war when you were young? Never shot at an animal with a toy?

 

Walk away and let it go. Not your concern.

Yeah, we can be our own worse PC enemy.

um... real airsoft guns are pretty damn real. This is not even so much about that... but who wants to get hit with a projectile going upwards of 300 fps.

 

If the kids were 13.... ie, high school age/almost... no doubt it would get interesting if LEO were passing by.

 

Then again, what if these dipshits were going to be shooting their school friend, or some person walking by?

 

Better yet, you have a CCW, one of these kids decides to take off the red ring around their airsoft, then decides it would be funny to jump out in front of you, draw an airsoft from their pants. Would you be drawing on them?

 

Its one thing if yo uare tossing balloons, or shooting an obviously toy gun. It is another with airsoft.

 

Unless you have seen some of these airsoft guns in person, until you pull the trigger, almost anyone would be fooled. When I was in NC, I played with an airsoft SCAR and a few airsoft 1911's and Glocks. Until you pull out the mag, there is no visible way to tell (in my opinion.) So real the slide actually moves and locks back/hold open.