You're only 17 and probably being extremely obnoxious with the toy guns on the bus, YDI! #81 let me guess...you're from Texas?

I even tell my little brohter not to play with toy guns in the car. Why is that so hard? Plus, someone on the bus was probably annoyed and alerted the police. So obviously you made them uncomfortable. Don't play with that shit in public. YDI

what is YDI?

YDI = You desevered it. lol.

i assume that these toy guns were like bright orange or something (only cap guns that i know are), so how the hell does a cop mistake a bright orange cap gun for the real thing?

(I'm assuming that, absent the toys, the level of rowdiness involved would have deserved no more than the driver shouting, "Hey! Settle down back there!", and that if he did, you obeyed the order. Horseplay on buses is quite properly frowned on; it's very annoying and often unsafe.) So, assuming that it was the toys that triggered the police action: Yes, you are f'd. So are we all. If there's no law against doing something, you shouldn't be arrested for doing it. (And yes, if you are in handcuffs, or otherwise not free to leave, you are under arrest for many legal purposes.) No, just "freaking people out" is not a criminal offense, because there is no way to predict what will freak people out. I'm sure the cops knew these were toys, not guns, because a cap gun bought from a dollar store will be brightly colored and obviously not a gun. Unfortunately, all too many cops believe that they ought to be the Only Ones With The Guns, and that not having a badge automatically makes you a suspect, and that suspects ought not to possess or carry even toy guns. I completely believe this story, because I read so many like it, all the time. For instance, there's a whole sub-genre of incidents just involving students, from grade school to high school, being suspended, expelled, even arrested, charged, and convicted, for violating school anti-violence policies, by doing such things as wearing pro-second amendment t-shirts, bringing a paring knife to cut an onion as part of a demonstration, having a tiny gun-shaped charm on a key ring, pointing a chicken finger at another student in the cafeteria and saying "Bang! Bang!", or, so help me, drawing a picture of a gun as part of an in-class assignment. (And do I really need to point out that many of these are First Amendment violations as well?) Then there's the school that changed its mascot, because the front-hall mural showed a Minuteman carrying a rifle.... Moving from toys to real guns, there are many, many instances of people getting arrested and charged for open carry in jurisdictions that explicitly permit open carry. Often the charge is "disorderly conduct", in response to some sheep calling 911 in a panic because he sees a citizen peaceably going about her lawful business with a Constitutionally-protected tool secured to her belt. (Pop quiz: Name the only other class of tools explicitly protected by the Constitution. Hint: it also involves little slugs of lead, a.k.a., "movable type".) In 2005, the Texas Legislature amended a state gun control law to make it clear that unlicensed concealed carry in one's car was specifically permitted. Here in Houston, Harris County DA Rosenthal responded by saying, essentially, "I don't like it and will prosecute citizens following the law." (Incidentally, the original law against carrying a firearm, openly or concealed, like many gun control laws, was a Jim Crow measure specifically intended to disarm uppity blacks, and was never meant to apply to white folk.) This is not a run of the mill FML; this is blatant, grossly unconstitutional oppression. arrestedgun, I've posted this at my website; if you would like expand on your story, particularly if you have documentation, such as a written warning, please leave a comment here or there.

Holy shit people, the kid bought something at the dollar store and got arrested over it. They were just screwing around. "Playing with them" doesn't mean cowboys and indians and shit, how is just shooting them off for the hell of it considered immature by so many people. I can't count how many times I'd take my paintball gun in the back yard and shoot targets, and if I could take it into public w/out it being a danger to others (lack of eye-protection) I would. The post doesn't say that they were firing them on the bus. Why shouldn't they be able to take them on a transport home, you think they would buy them just to throw them away after using them once? There's not even a danger if one of them accidentally went off. Hell, it's not like you need a permit to carry them. Forget that, the cops shoulda gave a "stern-talking" to the dumbass who reported the kids. Usually I read the comments because they are often funnier than the fml itself, but the naivety and judgmental attitudes of y'all who's attention spans' don't last 'till the end of the post astonished me this time.

Toy guns do not determine your maturity, it's how you use it. I'm just glad you didn't have a real gun. I don't think you deserved it.

If you read the article posted, then there is no way this is the officers fault. The students involved DELIBERATELY ALTERED THE TOY GUN TO MAKE IT LOOK REAL. Rather than complaining about being arrested, they should be worshipping the god that enabled them to get away with just an arrest rather than being killed for threatening people with what appeared to any onlooker to be a real gun in public

Cops have too much spare time nowadays.