by Ken Tuccio

I buy a lot of strange stuff, obviously you know that.

I’ve bought a SupaSplat Splatblaster, a magazine from High School Musical, and even an Anamorphin’ Elephant Ranger. For whatever reason though, I believe this product tops them all …

This is the Backyard Safari Netgun.

The purpose of the Netgun seems simple; during adventures outdoors you’re supposed to use it to capture bugs big and small. Bugs are apparently very frightened of this weapon, as the cartoon representation shows …

When I was younger I played outside a lot, and I can say with a lot of certainty that none of the bugs I dealt with were dumb enough to get caught in a net. They flew pretty fast, were hard to swat, and I’m fairly confident they’d avoid a Netgun without any issues.

Maybe bugs have gotten slower as I’ve gotten older, but I don’t see myself catching any bugs with this item. I see myself using it to annoy people at work, home, and on the street; so unless I shoot it at a guy named Ant, I don’t see myself capturing anything bug related with it.

The cartoon on the front of the box makes this gun look amazing, and upon opening it, I have to say it is a pretty kick-ass looking weapon …

Seriously, look at this thing. This looks like something out of Total Recall, not something I’d purchase for $4 at Target.

From the color scheme, to the mold of the gun, this is without a doubt the coolest piece of plastic weaponry I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s way cooler than those nunchuks I got with the Ninja Battle Gear, and it makes me want to melt down my Wii Zapper into a puddle of molten hot plastic.

When a toy makes me want to melt down a Wii peripheral, you know it's special.

The set comes with more than just a gun, it also comes with a few “practice targets”. These targets are actually rather entertaining, as they’re all cartoon versions of various bugs. You have the beetle, with a slice of pizza around his neck …

A mosquito with a nose that can double as a sex toy …

A bee that’s pissed that Jerry Seinfeld left him out of Bee Movie …

Then, finally, a praying mantis who is a master at the ninja arts …

I have to give the folks at Summit ( the company you produced the gun ) credit, as they went all out with these targets. These are pretty detailed, cool looking, cartoons. They very easily could have Googled “bug” and printed out a bunch of pixilated images on cardboard, but instead they opted to go the extra mile, and their effort is appreciated.

As cool as the gun looks, and as cool as the target looks, I’m rather curious as to how well this Netgun works, so I set up a target and went to town …

Oh, this thing fucking rocks.

The power that this thing shoots with is insane. I’ve never had any sort of toy gun shoot with that type of velocity, not even a Super Soaker, and everyone knows how dangerous those things are. I seriously think I’d hurt someone if I shot them in the eye with this, and to me that makes this an even more awesome gun.

I’m still not convinced that this Netgun would nab me any real life bees, but I do know that as soon as I finish typing this I’m going to walk into my roommates bedroom and try to shoot a net in his face.

Quite frankly, the fact that I can do that makes this Netgun completely worth every penny I paid.