Whhoooooooo there’s a double dose of stupidity in this here piece on so many levels. Here’s the basic thing … airsoft guns look real. Cops shoot kids. Now read on …

An alarm went off one night at Potowmack Elementary School in Sterling, and a surveillance camera recorded the scene: five intruders in masks and hoods darting through hallways and corridors, their assault rifles pointed.

Change your shorts. They were toys. Please stop wishing for mass murder.

In minutes, sheriff’s deputies arrived, their own guns loaded and drawn.

Proving that if there were people in the school, and the kids broke in with … you know … actual weapons and not toys … that it would have been “minutes” before anyone came by the scene with a mop and bucket to clean up the unarmed mess that generally tends to happen when some deranged psychopath runs around in a “gun free zone”. I don’t think this article is going to talk about that though …

Only after the gunmen were taken into custody did deputies discover that the assault rifles were replicas — so-called “airsoft” guns that shoot lightweight plastic BBs — and the intruders were 14-year-old boys. But during that tense confrontation June 2, 2006, fantasy and reality collided, the line blurred between teenagers who were pretending and deputies who were not.

They weren’t gunmen. They were stupid kids. They didn’t have guns. They had toys.

Fantasy and reality didn’t collide. Stupidity and toys collided. It is telling how the author describes potential mass murderers with assault weapons running around a school in masks with weapons drawn as “fantasy.” Project much? Been too long since a mass murder took place in a gun free zone and are you getting just perhaps a tiny bit eager to see one again so you can try to make your point that gun bans are vital for this civilized society?

No one was hurt in the Loudoun County school break-in, but that has not been the case everywhere. In the past several years in Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, young people with imitation guns have been killed by police who assumed they were armed with the real thing.

… and numerous others who were unarmed and meant no harm were shot and killed too. Stupidity does that - whether it’s on the part of some idiot thug or some idiot officer who … I don’t know … loads a house full of lead for whatever reason.

“It sends a chill up your spine to think of what could have happened,” said Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Loudoun sheriff’s office, which sent eight deputies to the elementary school that June night.

Something tells me I’m not getting chills at the same thing this guy is. I’m getting chills because when seconds count, police are only minutes away - as this case proves once again, of course. He’s getting chills because after they’ve been running around that school for a few minutes, police nearly showed up and shot the stupid kids up.

These cases and others have come amid a quiet uptick in the popularity of airsoft guns. Police have seen more of them. Schools have noted their arrival. Last holiday season, they ranked among the most-searched-for items online in the toys and hobbies category, along with Barbie, Build-a-Bear and Legos, according to the Hitwise Index chart.

Barbie. Build-a-Bear. Legos. Airsoft guns. Sweet.

The issue of shootings prompted by imitation guns is not new, and Congress and some jurisdictions passed laws more than a decade ago to address such concerns.

… but people are getting shot anyway. Imagine that. A law not working!

But with the popularity of airsoft guns and other realistic pellet and BB guns, the issue has taken a new turn and is again causing alarm.

Toys don’t cause alarm. Stupid behavior causes alarm. Breaking into a school with masks on should cause alarm. Playing with airsoft guns in your backyard shouldn’t. A company selling an in-demand toy shouldn’t cause alarm. People purchasing and playing safely with that toy without doing anything impossibly stupid shoudn’t cause alarm. What’s causing alarm here in the eyes of the author is the fact that it looks like a gun.

Some parents say the guns are fairly harmless, especially with safety goggles and supervision, just a step beyond laser tag and Nerf guns, a less-expensive and cleaner cousin to paintball. Officials at a major airsoft importer said that safety should be a priority and that the guns are marketed for adults.

They aren’t guns. They’re toys. And they are harmless. Toasters are more dangerous. Swimming pools are more dangerous. Stupidity is what’s most dangerous because it allows any object - be it an airsoft gun or a swimming pool or a plastic spork - to harm someone or something. And I never got the whole laser-tag thing. Nerf guns on the other hand are a cubicle-dweller’s best friend.

Critics, however, say the guns’ striking realism and accessibility are a growing problem. They contend that the guns create unnecessary risks — with both police and anyone else who has a real firearm — and can scare other people.

Some people see a spider on the wall and run away batting at their head, screaming like a toddler, and wetting themselves. “Does it scare other people?” should not be used as a measure of whether something is dangerous or not. “Is the person holding it a complete idiot?” is a much better question.

Try this exercise …

1) Name a random object. Something you see in the room you’re in right now. I’ll say … the #2 pencil on my desk. Pick it up. Look at it. Ponder what it’s generally used for (like failing standardized exams).

2) Pretend your Wife/Husband/Mom/Dad/Cousin is next to you, holding the object. Now answer the question - at that moment, do you feel threatened by that particular object? I’d say no. My Mom has written many notes, and never once has a simple pencil been dangerous in her hands. People write things. That’s what that tool is for.

3) Now, pretend that standing right next to you is not your Wife/Husband/Mom/Dad/Cousin. Pretend it’s some shaggy, urine-smelling homeless guy with bloodshot eyes and a nervous twitch. He’s talking to himself, ranting on and on, louder and louder about satellites beaming down mind control rays and how zombie donkeys from Hoboken stole his pancake breakfast and changed the subway schedule. He’s holding the same pencil.

Now ask yourself … in that situation, do you feel threatened by that particular object?

If you’re smart, you do. But not because it’s a pencil, or a toaster, or whatever. You feel threatened because the deranged individual holding it is probably a whisker away from plunging it into your eye socket in order to have vengeance against your zombie donkey puppet masters. “I’ll t-t-TeACh tHEm fer st-ST-sTeALiNg my pANcaKeS! GGGGAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!11!!!!”

“I think they are unreasonably dangerous,” said Stephen Teret, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “I’m not talking about the question, ‘Should kids play with guns?’

Swimming pools are unreasonably dangerous. Actually, Stephen Teret is unreasonably dangerous because he’s trying to make a point by not-answering the question “Should kids play with guns?” Of course they shouldn’t. Kids should play with toys. That’s a highly deceitful way of making a point. He’s also dangerous because he says things like this:

The issue is why you would make the guns so realistic that even a trained policeman can mistake the gun for a real gun.”

Police don’t have superpowers, dude. And there are plenty of gun-owners who have considerably more knowledge about firearms than your average cop. I’m not knocking cops here - it’s a tough job, for certain. What I’m taking issue with is people who hold them up like they’re super-human with the intent of arguing that they should be the only ones with guns, or are the only ones trained enough to understand what a firearm is and does. That’s pure crap.

Airsoft and other look-alike pellet and BB guns are increasingly used in robberies, police officials say, and some jurisdictions have banned or considered bans for possessing or brandishing them in public.

Banning stupid behavior. Can we ban politicians? No?

“A lot of these young people were bringing them to school, and some of these look more like a real gun than a real gun,” said Police Chief David Bishop of Beaverton, Ore., where replicas were banned in public in March 2007.

There will always be an abundance of stupid behavior …