New York’s push to ban the Red Ryder BB gun is sparking anger because it targets a harmless childhood tradition while doing nothing to stop real criminals, and it’s turning commonsense safety training into a crime for ordinary families.
New York’s hostility to the Second Amendment has been obvious for years, and this latest move feels like another overreach. People want to teach kids responsibility and marksmanship, not push them into a world where learning about guns is illegal. The Red Ryder BB gun has been a rite of passage for generations, and banning it would punish families who follow the rules.
Lots of folks remember their first BB gun with a grin, and many of those memories involve a Red Ryder. The gun isn’t especially dangerous compared with other air guns, and the cultural memory of Ralphie and A Christmas Story is part of what makes it iconic. Daisy, the maker of the Red Ryder and other air guns, has publicly called out New York for targeting these products.
The practical effect of a ban would be to push a harmless pastime out of reach for thousands of kids who want to learn about safety and responsible shooting. Local ranges and family yards are where young people can learn supervision, safe handling, and respect for firearms without exposure to criminal elements. Instead of empowering law-abiding parents, the state would be removing a useful tool for education.
The plug alone renders them useless. It’s two bills – S9215 and A10701. Contacting your legislators to voice your opposition is required to stop the removal of yet another of your rights. Hard Air magazine has more info.
Yes, criminals sometimes use air guns to scare victims by pretending they are real firearms, and that is wrong. But tightening rules on legal owners won’t stop criminals who ignore laws in the first place. Any forced black plug, mandated color scheme, or regulatory label can be defeated in seconds by people who never intended to follow the law.
When lawmakers focus on toys and training tools, they are choosing the low-hanging fruit while violent offenders roam free. Removing Red Ryder-style air rifles from the market will not reduce violent crime, but it will strip a generation of a simple way to learn safety. For every rule imposed on honest citizens, bad actors find another way to break the law.
Meanwhile, the justice system shows the mismatch in priorities: some dangerous offenders receive light sentences while politicians chase trivial bans. We’ve all seen the sweetheart sentences some of these monsters get, including the “trans migrant” rapist of a 14-year-old boy in Manhattan, who got a six-month time served sentence and is back out on the streets. It’s impossible to reconcile that with the zeal to penalize ordinary families for owning air guns.
This is the pattern in far-left states: coddle criminals, punish law-abiding people, and call it progress. They posture about virtue while actual public safety declines, and then turn around and take toys and training aids away from responsible parents. It creates resentment and reduces the chance that the next generation will learn careful, conservative stewardship of firearms.
At least Ralphie’s story unfolded in a place where a kid could still hope for a Red Ryder under the tree, but not every child gets that break. Banning these simple air guns won’t make communities safer, and it won’t help victims who need serious criminal justice reform and enforcement. In the meantime, normal families lose another way to pass down common-sense safety and skills to their kids.
