The Battle of Nerf Gun Control Bitterness

/ bensbitterblog
You have the right to Bear Arms. Just not guns.

You have the right to Bear Arms. Just not guns.

When I first moved to Seattle, I thought it would be near a coffee shop, or a shop where people threw fish at me, or underneath a huge needle looking tower thing that would be throwing fish at me.  I knew so little about this Seattle and what it would look like.  Instead of one of those few iconic images of downtown, our house resided in more of a rustic woodsy, tree like neighborhood 30 minutes from downtown.  We have a high school, an ice skating rink, and a gas station about a mile away before we get to a town of sorts three or four miles away.  I settled in thinking it would be a quiet place and I was right.  Until the first Saturday morning when I tried to sleep in.  It was only about 10 am and all of a sudden I hear shots.  Were fireworks allowed around here? Is there a shootout going on in our neighborhood? It seemed pretty safe out here, but then, for all I knew, there could be some kind of meth lab around here.

I found out that only about two blocks away there was a gun club.  Right here in my sleepy, foresty, suburb town. And I found out that they shoot all day long.

I don’t know what side of the second amendment you are on(the right to bear arms, I just googled), but the issue is really hitting home in my, uh home. Things are getting a little out of gun control at my house, both literally and figuratively.  My son likes guns and has for a long time.  Thinking it would be a passing phase like Thomas the Tank Engine or the Wiggles, we got him his first Nerf gun when he was like 5.  We taught him about gun safety(don’t shoot me in the head) and the proper clean up of the bullets.  At first, he was satisfied with the one gun.  He was shooting me everywhere except the head(yeah he listened for once!) and he didn’t ever clean up the bullets (boo, he didn’t listen once again!), but for the moment he was happy.

Then he saw that they carried other types of Nerf guns and thought that there was no way his life would be complete without the new one that had more that one chamber.  He could shoot me twice as much and he could be much more efficient with his growing bullet(sorry, I mean dart) arsenal.  So now he has enough for him and his friend and they can battle.  But that wasn’t enough. His birthday comes and he wants the six shooter; then he sees one at the thrift store and soon we need a nerf gun rack to store all his guns. Soon he is Micheal Scarn in Threat Level Midnight taking down Goldenface.  The darts are everywhere. On the floor, behind the TV, in the couch cushions, even in my clothes and hair every morning. You might have the right to bear arms, but you better clean up the darts.

Don't mess with Michael Scarn.

My son going all Michael Scarn on me.

I say enough, but he keeps begging.  Every other week, I come home to an excited kid. “I got another one!” to my “YEAAAHHHH, another one that won’t get picked up! More darts everywhere! NO MORE GUNS!”, but somehow they keep magically appearing as if they are just multiplying by themselves.  This has got to stop.  I need a plan.  Either there needs to be an anti-Nerf gun gun, or I need to start a march on Washington to start a new amendment where Nerf Guns are declared illegal without a licence. Or a training class is required to teach them proper Nerf gun control, meaning they need to learn to control their urges to get another one.  Or I need to launch an all out offense anti-marketing attack against the Nerf gun company. Take down the advertising! Kill all the promotion! Shut down all their channels of distribution! Raise their prices so high that they will only be available on the black market! Fill their bullets with carbs or MSG so the parent’s advocates and FDA will declare them unsafe for our kids!

I’m going to win this war.  At any and all costs.  If all those don’t work, I have the ultimate grenade that will end all this.  Shame.  “Hey, your friend just told me that he thinks that only kindergarten kids play with Nerf Guns.”  Boom! DROP THE MIC!

Take that.

Take that.

ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH I JUST GOT SHOT WITH ANOTHER DART IN THE HEAD…GOING DOWN….

BITTER DYING…DYING…DEAD BEN

 

 

40 thoughts on “The Battle of Nerf Gun Control Bitterness”

  3. Your little suburb sounds like the little suburb of Seattle (south of it) we moved from. We weren’t too far from the shooting club either. Nerf guns are of great use to hit the dog in the butt to keep her from barking her silly head off at absolutely nothing.

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    • It could be the same. We are south of Seattle. What’s funny is I ranted so hard about it yesterday, that my wife decided to not buy one yesterday for him, because she was worried I would bust a nut again. Warmed my bitter soul…for a day.

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  6. I imagine this must be difficult for you, what with all the darts in the couch cushions when you’re trying to sleep. Great post! I especially like the excerpt at the end that must have got cut and paste there accidentally and makes no sense whatsoever.

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  7. I’ve got bad news, Bitter Ben–college students play with Nerf guns. They have this on-campus “humans v. zombies” game that requires the humans to carry multichamber Nerf guns on the way to and from class. At engineering schools, no less. J.

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  9. Oh and hopefully this phase will too pass. My two sons started out with the multitude of Nerf guns – Nerf bullet darts lying everywhere in and outside our house. We had huge baskets of every type of Nerf gun made. Then they advanced to the Air Soft guns, and those can get quite pricey. Five years later – I am still finding the pellets in the house and the garden. They seem to be proliferating. But luckily they are out of that phase and have moved on to bigger and better things – cars, rims, tinting of windows etc. The price of the Nerf gun seems much more appealing to me now – despite the scattering of Nerf darts.

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  10. How about dodging cars? More people are killed each year by cars and doctor’s prescriptions than any other method. And if your doctor is driving the car that hits you after you’ve walked out of the pharmacy with the prescription he just wrote for you, then you’re doubly cursed–unless you’re dead. Then you “were” doubly cursed. 🙂

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