Thoughts on Lawn Darts

As best I can tell, the lawn dart was invented in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some engineer was forced to go to a Saturday afternoon picnic and realized around 11am "an oversized, cartoon-like, horseshoe is actually not designed for flight, its no wonder it is hard to get around that post". By 4:30pm, the lawn dart was born. And by 11:17pm the local news was reporting that "a heavy, finned, metal object - sort of like a missile - should really not be thrown into the air, especially in a populated area, by somebody who had been drinking beer".

Here is the part that gets me: lawn darts were banned by Consumer Product Safety Commission on December 19th, 1988. I realize some people were hurt, even killed, but let's examine some of the things that were never banned:

• Horseshoes - I don't have any proof to back this up, but I would be shocked if somebody wasn't, at the very least, knocked out cold by a horseshoe thrown in a game. Horseshoes remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Horseshoes - I am absolutely certain that horseshoes have caused serious injury when attached to a horse's foot and kicked into a person's head. I suppose the actual problem is:
• Horses - the horse is pretty much a recreational item in our society. Horses are beautiful, sturdy animals (with incredibly soft noses, I don't know why, but that sticks with me). They are also just a little smarter gerbils, and getting kicked by one is a little bit like getting kicked by a Buick. Yet horses remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Vending machines - people are killed every year while rocking vending machines back and forth, eventually tipping them over. Late one Saturday night when I was in a college dormitory I gave somebody I had never met before a bag of microwave popcorn because I could hear he was trying to tip a vending machine that took his money while he was trying to buy popcorn. I may have saved his life that night, but one thing is for sure - I fell asleep sooner because I gave him the popcorn and he went away. Yet vending machines remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
• Archery Equipment - If you take a lawn dart, make it longer, sharper, and make it a projectile that is launched from a mechanized device horizontal to ground, you get a bow and arrow, which Ted Nugent uses to exercise birth control on the deer population. Yet archery equipment.... may actually be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I'm really not sure. And yes, I have been to a family picnic where archery was involved

So what am I trying to say? Am I trying to get lawn darts un-banned? No. There are a couple of reasons - first, I simply don't care. I've never found myself at a backyard barbecue really upset that there were no lawn darts - it is a vaguely athletic endeavor and I am almost certainly bad at it. Secondly, there was a booming market for pre-ban lawn darts on eBay, but it looks like they too may have banned them now (but there is actually a lot of funny t-shirts and bumper stickers about them being banned, which just points out that nothing I do is actually original). I have a policy that when people can actually make money selling really stupid things on the internet, I don't fool around with that.

Am I trying to ban Horseshoes, Horseshoes, Horses, Vending Machines, and Archery Equipment? No. Life is dangerous, and you just have to use your best judgment, weigh risks carefully, blah, blah, blah....

Am I trying to gently point out that almost any household item used in a careless fashion could be harmful? Yes (Note: for more benign objects you may have to replace "careless fashion" with "stupid fashion" or even "stupid, idiotic fashion"- for example you can hurt yourself with a knife just being careless - but to hurt yourself with a CD case you would have to be stupid, perhaps idiotic).

Mostly, I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention.

"...and hey, be careful out there."