CPSC bans sale of BuckyBalls

reuters.com

5 points·massarog··5 comments

It sucks to see BuckyBalls go the way of lawn darts, but as a parent of a very active and impulsive 5yo I can totally understand why they were banned.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans)

I guess they should ban hot stoves, grills, harmful toxins, and everything else a child can come into contact with. This falls on the parents. If you have a product your child can get injured by, don't leave it in plain sight and don't let your child play with it.

"Buckyballs are small, powerful round rare earth magnets that are sold as toys and desktop accessories."

Hot stoves, grills and harmful toxins aren't toys and there isn't a normal use case where a child would use those. It can happen, but it's not intended.

A toy's use case is playing with it. This particular toy is causing problems, where other toys aren't. I see no problem in banning them. We aren't a full-on libertarian society, we make choices, not always to everyone's liking.

And you conveniently omitted the part where it says "[...] marketed the magnets to adults and teenagers" to focus on the word toy. It's as dishonest as calling for a ban on Ben Wa Balls if a child choked on one. Because you know... they're balls, they're "toys" and they're a hazard.

No dishonesty intended, and not done conveniently. They look like toys (or chocolate, from the article), and kids are getting hurt. We disagree.

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