The boy was using a rubber band gun and his father said the kid did nothing wrong, but police said they take it as a serious threat and the 11-year-old is facing felony charges...Besides...he was just pretending to be an "Only One."
He also confirmed that the gun was black, but that it looked more like a stick than a gun.
This lets me segue into a tangentially related post I was going to do independently until rubber bands and law enforcement became a news nexus. Perhaps dismissal of charges will not be so swift to come should the horrible act of civil disobedience I'm pondering be a catalyst for a response.
Y'see, my oldest boy's braces just came off. One of the things he had to do was put rubber bands on his teeth as well. I'd never really noticed the fine print on the package before:
Caution: U.S. Federal Law restricts this device to sale by or on the order of an orthopedic [orthodontic--see Comments] professional.
The restricted contraband in question is that tiny latex circle in the top of the picture, which our all-knowing Federal Overlords have deemed us mere tax cows too untrustworthy to possess without their sanction. If we defy them, why I imagine the penalties could be quite severe. We might get our groins kicked--assuming they stormtroop in to the right address. It might even be worse--we could be killed and have our property seized--who knows? I mean, we're dealing with people who would close down a family business over forms being filed chronologically rather than alphabetically. We're dealing with people who would gun down an old lady and lie about it and plant false evidence. We're dealing with people who would shoot a mother in the head while she's holding her baby, or burn down citizens and their children in a private church.
So who's in for some civil disobedience? Who wants to buy a rubber band? All I'm asking is a penny.
[Rubber band gun link via Jeffrey H, who bears no culpability for the rest of my post]