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

[Punch]

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

So are all of my guns. Just can't be too safe these days.




Joking.

 

[JCliff]

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

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Blues, your analysis in the other thread was superb. With the information that’s currently out in the public sector, I cannot blame the police for this either, as horrifying as it is. Not sure there is a good answer to this, nearly certain there is no additional (sane) law that could possibly “fix” this.
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When I was a kid I saved up money to buy a parade replica 1903 Springfield. I was the envy of all my buddies while we ran all over the neighborhood “playing army” because my toy looked real. Remarkably real. From just a step or two away, anyone would have a hard time being certain that it was “just a toy.” Back then, a bunch of kids running through the neighborhood with “toy” guns would not elicit any calls to the police by concerned neighbors either. Our world has changed significantly since then. My kids are grown, but I won’t be buying any realistic “toy” guns for my grandkids, nor would I let them run around in public with a replica (and certainly not a pellet gun -- which is not a toy) or any other “realistic gun toy” even if it did have an orange piece of plastic on the end. That’s just the world we live in now. Might not be a cop that shoots someone with a “toy” that looks like that AK replica pellet gun that was in the photos. There certainly are circumstances I could be scared of someone holding something that looked like that…