BOSTON -- Mayor Raymond Flynn Monday asked area merchants to stop selling high-powered 'super soaker' water guns, calling the popular toys a 'clever idea that has gone sour.'
Flynn sent letters to merchants seeking a halt to the sale of the 'super soakers' in the wake of incidents in which one youth was shot to death after a water-gun battle, and one in which a woman and her 4- year-old child were sprayed with what was believed to be bleach.
The pump-action water guns, which can carry as much as 2 liters of fluid, are able to send a spray of liquid about 50 feet and have quickly become the toy of choice for many inner city youths.
'With the ready availability of handguns and other weapons in our inner cities,' Flynn wrote to the merchants, 'perhaps the time has come for adults to discourage the use of toy guns to simulate violent activity, regardless of how innocent this kind of play may appear.'
One toy merchant, Michael Slocum, called the proposal 'The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of in my life.'
Slocum said thousands of the guns have been sold, and there has been only one or two incidents.
'Yet every day there is a problem with a baseball bat or hockey stick, or marbles or things like that. You going to ban those too? And how about snowballs. You going to ban snowballs?' Slocum asked.
Flynn, who has no power to ban the weapons, said that with the warm weather coming, 'There is good reason to act on what we have learned and stop selling these particular water guns. There is no need to blame anyone for a clever idea that has gone sour on city streets throughout the country, just a need to take responsible action now.'
Flynn acknowledged that most men as children played with toy guns but he said 'times have changed. Until recently, teenagers were not killing teenagers in America's cities.'
The mayor cited the May 29 slaying of a 15-year-old boy who was caught in the middle of a water-gun fight and was shot dead by another youth who pulled a real gun after apparently becoming angered over being drenched.
He also cited an attack last week in which two youths sprayed the faces of a woman and her 4-year-old child. Their water weapons apparently were loaded with bleach, officials said, causing minor burns to the victims.
Councilor Jonn Nucci scoffed at the mayor's suggestion, saying that 'for most Bostonians, being shot with a squirt gun is the least of their worries.'
A clerk at a South Boston store, Lisa Meiggs, also criticized the mayor's proposal, saying that 'the mayor forgets what being a kid is like.'
Most area stores reportedly were virtually sold out and were awaiting new shipments.
'They're making much too much money to take them off the shelves,' said a worker at a Dorchester store.
