Do you guys read off a script? You don't really read the diary from what I can tell.

First off, to address your second point first: No one is saying cops should not have guns. Jumping to that conclusion shows how irrationally you react to anyone concerned about guns.

Now, your third point. Here is where I don't get gun advocates. They claim they are all for responsibility when it comes to guns, but then they see any concern over responsibility as some kind of attack on gun ownership. Why are you so obsessed with your phallic symbol that you have to advocate for a gun to be everywhere at all times? You are advocating LESS responsibility regarding guns than say for a knife.

You also are making the same absurd "it's just an inanimate object" arguement that everyone else makes. Well, as has already been pointed out, a crack pipe or syringe are also just inanimaate objects that are only dangerous when used. A crack pipe doesn't light up by itself. A syringe doesnt just jump up and inject people on their own do they? Knives don't cut people, people cut people.

And yet these are objects that all responsible parents keep out of the areas where their children play. And yet we shouldn't show the same kind of responsibility, keeping an inanimate object with the potential to cause severe bodily harm, away from an area where kids are playing. You state, contrary to what I said in the diary, that the gun was in "not-even-really-significant proximity " of a child. That shows how your view of the situation is so affected by your irrational obsession with an inanimate object. The gun was in the area where kids run and play, sometimes in great number. It was very much in proximity of kids. That is kind of the point.

So, I will say that I have talked to many other parents. They all felt as uncomfortable as I did, and many far less comfortable than I. You seem to feel that New Yorkers live in some constant fear of guns and have some desire to take your precious, phallic inanimate object away from you. That just isn't so. But we do believe people should be responsible with guns and we believe that there are appropriate and inappropriate things in a play area. Knives are not things you keep in a play area (despite what another nearly identical comment upthread said). Neither is a gun. There is no real excuse.

Finally, no one, or should I say not one of your screen names, has told me whhat purpose a gun has preventing children from pilfering. Because despite all your hysterical fear of maniacs and criminals, the stated purpose of the presence of that armed cop was to prevent kids from pilfering. Can you explain to me how the presence of that gun is a reasonable solution to preventing 4 year olds from shoplifting? Because that is really the fundamental question, not your fetish and right to fondle guns or the need for cops to be armed to deal with maniacs.