Tonz O Gunz

By Matt Wood in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 29, 2006 1:14PM

Sometimes when we wake up and splay the Chicago newspapers across our desk, certain themes just pop out at us. We're like John Nash from A Beautiful Mind, circling headlines with markers and attaching connecting strings with masking tape and pushpins. In between the seasonal religious controversies and potential parking-dibs comment bait this morning, today's theme was guns: real ones, fakes ones, and illegal ones.

While CBS 2 was still talking about the fallout from Thanksgiving Day's murder-suicide tragedy on the South Side, they also reported on another tragedy narrowly averted. A 7th grader in Naperville was suspended for bringing a replica toy gun to school. The tragedy averted isn't that the toy gun could have done any damage, but that police can't afford to take the time to distinguish between replicas and the real deal in case things get hairy, as they did when they nearly shot a 14-year-old in Naperville back in 2004 who was packing a fake Colt .45. Of course if you want to make sure you get shot, you can always point a couple real guns at the cops.

And where would Snoop Dogg's life be without guns? He grew up a gang member, made his name hollerin' 187 on a muthafuckin' cop, and narrowly beat a murder rap of his own, back in 1996. Yesterday he was arrested as he left the set of "The Tonight Show" and charged with illegally possessing a handgun and drugs. After reading the lede, we first pictured Jay Leno running outside after Snoop's vehicle yelling, "Snoop! Snoop! You forgot your gun!" but instead the arrest stemmed from an October incident in which police found a gun and marijuana in Snoop's car at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. This time police collared the Dogg as he pulled away from NBC Studios and executed a serach warrant on his home.