Toy Guns Gone Wild

As children, many of us loved to shoot things at our friends and siblings. Snowballs, rubber bands, Nerf darts, anything that could be shot likely would be. Heck, we all resorted to flicking little balls of paper in class. Well, our childhood entertainments have reached new extremes – these products look like they’re ready for you to release your inner child (if your inner child was Rambo) as you fling objects at the people around you. These “toy” guns in particular (the toy part is used loosely on the rubber band gun) take shooting things at your friends and coworkers a bit too far.

For today’s example of “things you shouldn’t buy your friend’s kid if you want to stay friends,” we have the latest Nerf gun. The N-Strike Elite Hail-Fire Blaster can shoot 144 foam darts in less than 30 seconds – if you buy the special add-on. It can hold eight clips of 18 shots, meaning that you have a lot of foam firepower at your disposal before you need to reload. It can shoot about six shots per second, so you could release all of your darts in 24 seconds.

Out of the box, the Elite Hail-Fire Blaster can hold only 24 darts at a time, so you’ll need the upgrade kit if you want to let your friends and office mates feel the fury of 144 darts. It runs on four AA batteries and will cost about $40 when it is released in September. If you buy this for a friend’s child, you may lose that friend; can you imagine an 8-year-old pelting you with 144 Nerf darts? Promotional images show a grown man using it, so maybe it is more for you than a child anyway. The sheer ridiculousness of so many foam darts raining down on your friends does create a hilarious mental picture. Just keep in mind that it takes much longer than 30 seconds to pick all of those darts up off the floor.

Sure, that new Nerf gun may seem extreme, but the Rubber Band Gatling Gun takes attacking coworkers over the tops of cubicles to a new level. This eight-barreled, solid aluminum gun weighs about 20 pounds and costs $500. Yes, you read both of those numbers right. It can be loaded with up to 100 rubber bands (size 64 bands are reportedly safe to be fired point-blank) and unloaded by turning a hand crank. It even has a Maglite on top so you can hunt your target in the dark.

Getting hit with a rubber band hurts badly enough, so I can’t imagine being on the receiving end of this office supply weapon. If one of your coworkers ever comes in with this monstrous elastic-slinger, it’s probably time for you to look for another job or for the HR department to step in. Surprisingly enough, the Rubber Band Gatling Gun is currently out of stock. People bought it? Who is serious enough about shooting rubber bands that they want to spend $500 and carry 20 pounds of aluminum?

When winter comes, you will have plenty of opportunity to hide behind cars in the parking lot or your friend’s driveway and pelt those around you with snowballs. Don’t worry, no one expects you to throw them (we all know your arms aren’t what they were in childhood), so there’s a toy weapon for snow, too. Simply load a snowball into the Crossbow Snow Launcher and let it toss the snowball up to 60 feet for you. Again, you may be wary of any adult who is too lazy to throw snowballs himself for free, and is serious enough about snowballs to buy a $40 tool.

In case you’re an adult with a need for adult tools to do infantile things, keep an eye out for these handy tools. Also keep an eye out for any adults using them. If you spot one, you might be in danger of getting hit, plus you’re probably in the presence of a weirdo.