One New York politician is calling it a teachable moment. The family of the man who committed the “indiscretion” is saying the public is overreacting. The reader is free to draw his or her own conclusions. CBS New York has the exclusive:
A Queens man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly firing a lifelike weapon and handing it over to his toddler-age son….
Jack Pawlowski was led out of his Queens home in handcuffs Wednesday, with his stunned wife and three young kids looking on. He said nothing as detectives put him into a squad car.
Pawlowski admits to taking the toy gun and two of his children to a local park around noon, when it was packed with kids and their parents. One of those parents, Maria Smilios, told CBS she thought she “was hallucinating,” adding:
He pulled out this gun…. The next thing, he took his son, who is 3, and showed him how to use it, and then the family took turns shooting the gun. He gave it to his daughter, who took off on the bicycle and started racing around the park with the gun pointing this way and just started pointing it at the kids.
So she called the police. (She also for some reason called City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr.) And the rest, as they say, is history — only it isn’t. New York already has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. The SAFE Act, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, places a boatload of restrictions on New Yorkers who own or seek to own guns, including toy guns, which are permissible provided the gun has bright a orange tip at the end of the barrel. That was the case in only one of the toy firearms Pawlowski brought to the playground. Hence, his arrest.
He remained in custody Wednesday evening, on charges that include reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a minor.
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