Do we really need TOY GUNS? - Deputy Shoots and Kills teen!

[superprincess]

These mistakes are becoming way to common. A few years ago, when I was chosen for jury duty. This was the same type of incident, only it wasn't a police officer and a teenager. The case was two guys dealing drugs and the not so lucky one had a toy gun in the car. The other guy who had the real one assumed the toy was real. Does anyone know what the government says about toy guns and these types of mistakes?



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[GlassWolf]

This wasn't a mistake. The officer repeatedly told the kid to drop the weapon, not knowing if it was a toy or not. The boy refused to obey the officer's commands, and the officer fired.

 

[K7lvo]

Toy guns aren't the problem. They've been around for a couple hundred years. I had some very realistic looking toys in the 50's and 60's - no one shot me. The problem is that people have no respect for each other now, and all too often conflict results.

 

[wolf_fire]

I believe another problem is that people do not nearly have the common sense people had before. When I was a kid with my realistic toy guns, it wouldn't even occur to me to keep holding onto it if a police officer said to drop it. It wouldn't occur to me to point it anyone that I wasn't playing "cops and robbers" with, especially a real cop.

When an authority figure told me that an action of mine was wrong and I continued to do it, there were real consequences. Today, I see kids doing the same stupid things over and over again and a typical response I hear from their parents, "oh, kids will be kids" along with a shrug and a smile. This is not the parenting I remember when I was a kid.

Saying the toy is the fault in these cases is like saying real guns are the fault of people committing murder. The "gun did it" mentality doesn't fly here with toy guns either.

 

[ezkl2230]

Does anyone know what the government says about toy guns and these types of mistakes?

The "government" says "too bad, so sad, sucks to be you. If you hadn't had that gun in the first place, you wouldn't have had to worry about an officer doing his job." Toy guns lead to real gun use, which is the root of all evil and crime according to the "government." Holder made it clear that changing society's mind regarding firearms begins with taking toy guns away from kids.

As I have noted in other posts, the problem is that police have been on a "war" footing for nearly the last 20 years. It isn't the "protect and serve" with which most of us grew up, where cops were friendly, approachable, and more likely to talk someone into surrendering and go an entire career without ever pulling the trigger, when they would come into a classroom for a friendly chat with the students, and let them handle his handcuffs and gun; these days
we have cops going into classrooms bragging about how they are the only ones professional enough to be trusted with firearms - right before they shoot themselves in the leg in front of those same students with the very firearm that only THEY are professional enough to handle. These days it is a war on crime - and that changes your entire approach, whether you intend to change or not. In a war, one is more likely to pull the trigger first and ask questions later - assuming the suspect is still alive to answer them. Where in the good old days cops would have encouraged kids to carry on with their games of cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or soldiers, these days a kid with a toy gun is a likely suspect.

But remember, this only applies to us common folks. The PRESIDENT can talk about the evils of guns, even toy guns, all day long, and then go to Camp David and shoot skeet or use toy guns around the pool.

 

[S&W645]

The "government" says "too bad, so sad, sucks to be you. If you hadn't had that gun in the first place, you wouldn't have had to worry about an officer doing his job." Toy guns lead to real gun use, which is the root of all evil and crime according to the "government." Holder made it clear that changing society's mind regarding firearms begins with taking toy guns away from kids.

As I have noted in other posts, the problem is that police have been on a "war" footing for nearly the last 20 years. It isn't the "protect and serve" with which most of us grew up, where cops were friendly, approachable, and more likely to talk someone into surrendering and go an entire career without ever pulling the trigger, when they would come into a classroom for a friendly chat with the students, and let them handle his handcuffs and gun; these days
we have cops going into classrooms bragging about how they are the only ones professional enough to be trusted with firearms - right before they shoot themselves in the leg in front of those same students with the very firearm that only THEY are professional enough to handle. These days it is a war on crime - and that changes your entire approach, whether you intend to change or not. In a war, one is more likely to pull the trigger first and ask questions later - assuming the suspect is still alive to answer them. Where in the good old days cops would have encouraged kids to carry on with their games of cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or soldiers, these days a kid with a toy gun is a likely suspect.

But remember, this only applies to us common folks. The PRESIDENT can talk about the evils of guns, even toy guns, all day long, and then go to Camp David and shoot skeet or use toy guns around the pool.

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And note where his trigger finger is in the second picture. He needs to take some NRA safety courses.

 

[ezkl2230]

And note where his trigger finger is in the second picture. He needs to take some NRA safety courses.

He learned from the best in the business!

 

[tcox4freedom]

Toy guns aren't the problem. Like others have said, the lack of respect our society has today is a big factor.

• Kid's are taught that the police are the enemy
• officers are taught to look at every civilian as an enemy.
• Common sense law enforcement is a thing of the past. (LEO's are under extreme pressure and FEAR is rampant in the ranks of a lot of departments.)
• Parents have unplugged & disengaged from their children's lives.
• School discipline isn't allowed anymore.
• If you spank your kid today for misbehaving you can be arrested. (Just the other day somebody was deemed an unfit parent because the refused to take their kid to McDonalds after they misbehaved.)
• Hollywood is the standard for which most people learn how to act today.
• The fear & ignorance of the sheeple has grown to staggering proportions.

Just the other day a lady I've known for 20yrs reported a MAN with a gun dressed in camo & stalking children. There was a two day man hunt and it even made the Statewide news.

It turned out to be a 10yr old kid playing with an Airsoft gun. He & other kids were so terrified of the police (watching SWAT teams comb the neighborhood), that they didn't come forward for two days. The thing is that this lady is NOT a flaming anti. She, like others have just been RE-programmed by watching the LSM.


Blaming toy guns & trying to correct an extremely complicated problem with society by outlawing or regulating them is like blaming a fireman armed only with a 2oz "Dixie Cup" for being unable to put out a four alarm fire. (The problem is just to BIG!)

-

 

[S&W645]

He learned from the best in the business!

Find her trainer in CA and break his fingers. Oh wait, she didn't take a class I'll bet as she is one of CA's political elites. ( sarcasm now turned off
) She is political but sure not elite. And as she remembers the mayor being shot every day, she suffers from PTSD and should be banned from even owning a gun. According to her own definition of people who should be banned. Illegal gun in DC and she is in possession of it. Arrest her.

 

[ezkl2230]

Illegal gun in DC and she is in possession of it. Arrest her.

Not the first time she has had "illegal in DC" weapons with her for her tirades.

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Feinstein is one of DC's biggest illegal weapons traffickers!

 

[BluesStringer]

Do we really need TOY GUNS?

This is a serious couple of questions, superprincess, so please think about it and try to answer them:

In a free country where the liberties acknowledged and protected by its Charter extend to the individual and not (only) the collective, how does the word "we" have any meaning in a question about personal choice?

Likewise, in a free country where the liberties acknowledged and protected by its Charter extend to the individual and not (only) the collective, how does the word "need" have any meaning in a question about how a parent (or set of parents) want to raise their children?

Many people have talked about the "problem(s)" you raise with your question as being associated with inadequate parenting or teaching or politicians giving "our" kids bad examples etc. I see no such problem to deal with at all. If "we need" anything, it's a return to the principles of individual liberty and responsibility. Even accepting the premise that "we need" to impose a collective solution to some perceived collective problem is demonstrative of the fact that individual liberty and responsibility is dead. That is much sadder to me than even the story you linked to.

Blues

 

[FNWylde]

I believe another problem is that people do not nearly have the common sense people had before. When I was a kid with my realistic toy guns, it wouldn't even occur to me to keep holding onto it if a police officer said to drop it. It wouldn't occur to me to point it anyone that I wasn't playing "cops and robbers" with, especially a real cop.

When an authority figure told me that an action of mine was wrong and I continued to do it, there were real consequences. Today, I see kids doing the same stupid things over and over again and a typical response I hear from their parents, "oh, kids will be kids" along with a shrug and a smile. This is not the parenting I remember when I was a kid.

Saying the toy is the fault in these cases is like saying real guns are the fault of people committing murder. The "gun did it" mentality doesn't fly here with toy guns either.

If I were that kid, minding my own business, daydreaming about having some fun while walking to a friends house, carrying a toy and not having the first damn clue that the cops just pulled up behind me, the LAST thing that would occur to me was the the cops were screaming at ME. Maybe I don't connect the dots very quickly but if I had a TOY and a cop started screaming to drop the GUN, I'd think there was somebody else with a REAL GUN.

Can't wait for the video and recordings but it sure sounds like it was 1) holler at the kid without identifying themselves as cops, 2)jump out of the car, and then when the kid turned to see WTF the commotion was, 3) he was shot dead still wondering WTF was happening.

This wasn't a kid doing stupid ****, this was a kid being a kid. And as pointed out, you can't turn your body to address the cops without whatever in your hands following. No info yet as to whether the muzzle was up, down, or otherwise. The police statement said the officer was in fear of his life and that he believed the suspect was about to point the airsoft rifle at them'.

Well, 'about' just isn't good enough. $.02

Edit: and to answer the OP's thread title "Do we really need TOY GUNS?", not addressing the OP specifically, the answer to that is we don't really need a lot of things, but we live in America where we have the freedom and liberty to enjoy our personal interests. That it is guns, knives, quilting, or any other hobby should not matter.

For what its worth, I'll post this clip of a cop jumping out of his car, hollering to put the knife down, and then shooting a man in the back. Threat? To who? Seattle Police Release Dashcam Video Of Woodcarver's Shooting - YouTube

I spent a little time with my 14yo daughter last night explaining in a little more detail why am I virtually always armed and talking about a few of these incidents. She was speechless at this video.

 

[superprincess]

Seems like the ones calling for gun control are the very ones walking around with armed special agents. Or using guns as the picture of Obama proves, what hypocrites!

 

[superprincess]

Blues, I pose the question because the toy gun in the story, which I link to looked so real, even the LEO couldn't distinguish it from the real thing. Of course in America you should be able to own what you want. This is why my grandfather and father served for this country. But would I give a child or teen a toy gun which looks so real and then say go walk around outside with it? No I wouldn't because I could not face the consequences of a poor parental decision of judgement, loss of a child would be unbearable in my opinion. Why must the toy manufacturer make these toys look so real?

 

[BluesStringer]

Blues, I pose the question because the toy gun in the story, which I link to looked so real, even the LEO couldn't distinguish it from the real thing. Of course in America you should be able to own what you want. This is why my grandfather and father served for this country. But would I give a child or teen a toy gun which looks so real and then say go walk around outside with it? No I wouldn't because I could not face the consequences of a poor parental decision of judgement, loss of a child would be unbearable in my opinion. Why must the toy manufacturer make these toys look so real?

It wasn't a toy, it was a pellet gun. Chances are that it was nowhere near as deadly as a real center-fire rifle, but there are some pretty powerful pellet guns out there and cops have no way of knowing which kind of ammo it fired in those critical seconds.

This is almost a two-week old story superprincess. A lot of us have already discussed the facts of the case that are in the public domain. You can read the last, and most comprehensive, post of mine saying what I think about it by clicking here. That's the second to last post in a fairly short thread about it, and includes links to every story I read about the story as that and another thread were still active. The busier thread can be viewed here.

Take your pick on which thread to look at, or look at both, but you're missing some important information if you still think the rifle was a toy. If it had really been a toy, it would have had a blaze-orange tip glued or painted on the muzzle. That's the law, and it's the law for toy (or airsoft) pistols too. Even if that was a toy and the kid either removed the plastic tip or painted over it to make his toy look more real, changing the laws would not solve that depth of stupidity. It wasn't a toy anyway though, so "we" don't "need" any laws to cover this kind of thing.

Blues

 

[superprincess]

Thanks blues for the links, lesson learned next time I will look at threads for the last couple of weeks.

 

[zeebea]

My son and all his friends shoot airsoft guns. He still plays but has through me bought himself an AK clone and we as a family with the wife (cant get the daughter to go yet) go trap shooting every Thursday. (Jake and I won two turkeys, a bottle of wine and a 100 dollar Cabellas gift card yesterday at the gun club turkey shoot. Anyway more than half of these parents are anti gun but they go out and buy a toy that looks and feels like a real gun! I have told my son that when they play in the fields behind our house to drop his gun and put his hands on his head if the local or state police show up. I say this because in this day it seems as a lot of these cowboys are just looking for a reason. The thing in California....who knows? No video is available. After the guy sitting in the chair got riddled a few weeks ago it lends to doubt. If it was as they say then I would have done him too, but with all that goes on these days I have my suspicions. Sad either way.

 

[zeebea]

All of my sons toy guns have an orange tip by the way.

 

[ezkl2230]

All of my sons toy guns have an orange tip by the way.

It is a federal offense to remove the orange tip from a toy/airsoft gun for just this reason.

 

[TrapperBob]

It is a federal offense to remove the orange tip from a toy/airsoft gun for just this reason.

Well, ... maybe. I shoot airsoft guns on my property, and have looked into the "orange tip" thing extensively. The applicable Federal code is Title 15 CFR, subtitle B, chapter XI, section 1150. This regulation in general deals with commerce, and this subsection specifically with the import, transportation, and sale of replica and toy guns. It states:
"§ 1150.2
Prohibitions.
No person shall manufacture, enter into commerce, ship, transport, or receive any toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm (“device”) covered by this part as set forth in § 1150.1 of this part unless such device contains, or has affixed to it, one of the markings set forth in § 1150.3 of this part, or unless this prohibition has been waived by § 1150.4 of this part."

(Other subsections of sections 1150 deal with what guns this applies to and what the markings must be.)

Nothing in this subsection specifically deals with the end user or consumer, it is concerned with commerce: import and sale. In the context of the Title "transport" is usually taken to refer to transport for commerce. There is no Federal law that specifically addresses the issue of whether the consumer can remove the orange tip. Looking into it you can find legal opinions on both sides, but I cannot find any actual court case of any consumer being charged under this regulation or any court ruling concerning the issue. There are state and local laws in some places, but this is the only Federal law that addresses the "airsoft orange tip issue", and apparently legal opinions vary on its applicability.

It could be argued that the phrasing in one of the other subsections, "permanently affixed", means the consumer cannot remove it either, but the problem is the whole Title 15 deals with Commerce and Foreign Trade. So its clear that a retailer cannot remove the orange tip, but less clear whether this also applies to the consumer. Kind of like the tags on mattresses prohibiting removal, although in recent years they clarified that by adding that it cannot be removed "except by the consumer".