Attention Toronto Silly Hall-You Fostered This Type Of Idiocy

Matt Gurney: Save a life, hide the starter's pistol

According to an article today, Toronto District School Board officials have finally had enough of school shootings. In the latest effort to make schools safer, free from the risk of gun violence, the TDSB has decided to get tough, crack down, and finally rid our schools of the scourge of ... the starter pistols used at track and field events. Former teachers, coaches, and unnamed school board officials want to see the pistols banned and replaced with new technology over the next few years. No doubt the students feel safer already.

Starter pistols are to real handguns what a table knife is to a machete. They have triggers, this is true, and when those triggers are pulled, there is a loud bang. They vaguely resemble revolvers. By design, they cannot fire live ammunition, being capable only of detonating a blank shell or a even just a cap. The loud crack, easily heard by all, is what sends sprinters racing down their lane. More modern starter pistols include electronic sensors that detect the pull of the trigger, starting the race clock, allowing for extremely accurate timings of competitive events. There are, of course, other ways of announcing the race's start, such as an electronic buzzer or a sharp blast from a whistle. But that isn't the point.

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