Toymakers Fight For Right To Poison America's Adults

There's pretty much only one thing America's broken system of governance can do anymore, and that is Protect The Children. This is why all children by law must be strapped into car safety seats and wear helmets at all times, but the minute they turn 18 they will be kicked out into a hellscape of economic despair and left with no choice but to sign up for one of America's many deadly wars. Thus, America's toymakers, who are laboring under a recent law that forced them to stop selling poisonous Chinese-made garbage to children, are trying to work around this onerous regulatory regime by claiming (correctly) that our nation's grown-ups are immature idiots who play with toys all the time too, and who cares if they die?

So, see, this law that got passed in 2008 says that children's toys really shouldn't kill children, ideally, but left it up to some gummint bureaucrats (the "Consumer Product Safety Commission") to determine what exactly qualifies as a "children's toy." Naturally, a bevy of hilariously named industry groups -- the "Halloween Industry Association," the "Handmade Toy Alliance," etc. -- are arguing that if even a single non-child-person squeezes him or herself into a Batman costume, that Batman costume is not a "children's toy" and therefore can be made out of material so flammable that it spontaneously combusts when exposed to sunlight. (Everyone knows the Batman only fights crime at night, right?)

Here is an important statement from Bill Sells, VP of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association:

[An adult can still fantasize about] being Eli Manning and throwing the winning touchdown pass in the Super Bowl with no time left on the clock ... The fact that legitimate sporting goods have "play value" or that users have "fun" while using a legitimate sport good is tangential to the well-recognized foundational purposes of these products ... [We] take the position that "size" does not matter.

Do you get that? An adult can still "fantasize" and have "fun" when using a "toy" and "size" doesn't matter. In other words, your dildo is probably made out of toxic drywall.

The five members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission have largely been unable to come to any kind of agreement on what's a children's toy and what isn't, obviously, so it's probably best to just have your kids remain absolutely motionless in front of the television until you hear that this has all been sorted out. [ NYT ]