VOTE: Should the Liberty Science Center remove a book showing kids how to make a fake gun?

There’s always going to be some product on the market that will offend someone.

Take, for instance, the tapestry resembling the uniform worn by gay victims of the Holocaust being sold at Urban Outfitters.

Yeah, I’ll admit – I thought it “over the top” myself, and while the ADL is protesting the sale of the item – I say, “…let them go ahead and sell it. If you think it’s offensive, don’t buy it! Let consumers decide if it’s in demand!”

Here’s the latest item to offend.

It’s a book being sold by the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City that teaches the reader (which in this case would be a child) how to build weapons modeled after the real thing.

The book, Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction 2: Build a Secret Agent Arsenal, has illustrations on how to make a "semi auto dice launcher" made out of a box for playing cards, a catapult to fling breath mints and a blowgun for cotton swabs or toothpicks. It also includes details on how to use markers to build faux magnums and Berettas that shoot hard candies.

Are you alarmed?

Some might be, but given the number of toys on the market today that could be construed as weapons, I’d think this to be tame.

Anyway a Manhattan man wants the Science Center to stop selling the book for fear the “guns” can be construed for the real thing – and can lead to tragedies like the recent shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice of Cleveland - when the replica gun with which he was playing was mistaken for the real thing.

The man, Michael C. Alamo, who saw the book during a recent visit to the center was aghast – and called for the book’s removal – saying:

"We shouldn't be teaching children that it's easy to make a realistic-looking Beretta out of things you can find around the house." "That's a way to guarantee a tragedy."

LSC spokeswoman Mary Meluso said that the contents in the book are innocuous and wholly consistent with the mission of the Science Center.

"If a parent doesn't want her child to build a periscope from a toothpaste box or a tongue-depressor catapult that launches mini-marshmallows or a so-called Candy Glock from a balloon, a playing card, and a plastic soda bottle, he doesn't have to buy the book.”

Exactly what I said about the Holocaust looking garb at Urban Outfitters.

Alcamo is an avid advocate of gun control, and became more vocal in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

Former toy designer John Austin is the author of the book and its companion series, including Prank University: the Ultimate Guide to College's Greatest Tradition and So Now You're a Zombie: a Handbook for the Newly Undead.

He says that even when built,

“…the 'Binder Beretta 92' looks nothing like a real gun or even a toy gun. A gentleman who is an advocate for stricter gun control is also flirting with being labeled an advocate for stricter literature control. Where does it stop?"

Like I said, if you don’t want it for your kid, don’t buy it. If other parents want to buy it for their kids, let them.