Raw Story...

A 3-year-old boy in Greenville, South Carolina was shot in the head and killed on Friday after he started playing with a pink handgun because he thought it was a toy.

What did the police have to say about this "tragedy"?

If you have guns, if you own guns mostly we would prefer you have them in a lock box,” Greenville Police Media Relations Officer Jonathan Bragg told WYFF. “At least have them out of the reach of children.”

Police had not yet revealed who fired the weapon.

This is pure American ideology speaking, and what it has to say is: Because negligence is also a part of your rights as an American gun owner, all we can do is ask that you at least try to consider practicing just the most primitive form of gun safety. It's also ideology that makes the mistake that ended the boy's life sound normal: he thought the real gun was a toy. This sort of thing can happen. It's practically just a little bad luck.

But why do we have toy guns in the first place? What purpose do they serve? You can't learn to shoot with one. It doesn't provide real protection. What's the benefit of a child pretending to be a killer? And if our society has no problems with toy guns, why would it have, say, a problem with children playing with toy sex dolls? It would be for more rational to prefer the latter than the former.

But why a pink gun in the first place?

Pink handguns and Hello Kitty assault rifles have been part of an effort to get firearms in the hands of women and younger groups in recent years. In 2011, Arizona state Sen. Lori Klein (R) was criticized after she pointed her loaded raspberry-pink handgun at a reporter.

One should never believe for even a minute that they've heard everything.