Fake guns are getting people in real trouble

[gunsmith]

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1085410057206840.xml
Toy guns spark weapons debate

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 24 (UPI) -- Michigan's highest courts may soon be deciding when a gun is not a gun -- or more precisely, what is a gun and what is a toy.

At issue are airsoft pistols, black plastic replicas of a Glock handgun that shoot plastic pellets.

Washtenaw County prosecutors have deemed them firearms under state law and are criminally charging people caught carrying them, the Ann Arbor News reported.

But other Michigan prosecutors and the State Police disagree, saying the realistic toys are just that -- like BB guns but with a slightly larger plastic pellet.

Washtenaw County authorities say the airsoft guns are firearms under Michigan law, which classifies firearms as weapons that expel a dangerous projectile larger than 0.177 caliber, the size of a BB.

However, other law enforcement officials say if that were the case, then paintball guns would also be considered contraband.

 

[carpettbaggerr]

under Michigan law, which classifies firearms as weapons that expel a dangerous projectile larger than 0.177 caliber

I suppose you could choke on an airsoft pellet.

 

[Treylis]

Washtenaw County prosecutors have deemed them firearms under state law and are criminally charging people caught carrying them, the Ann Arbor News reported.

I wonder if people are carrying them like they're real guns in these instances?

 

[David Scott]

In a late breaking development, the Mother of the Washtenaw County prosecutor issued a statement saying, "If I told him once, I told him a thousand times, you could put someone's eye out with that thing!"

 

[Standing Wolf]

I wonder if people are carrying them like they're real guns in these instances?

Yep. Believe it or not, there are people dumb enough to try armed robbery without being armed. Some of them get caught. Some of them get shot. Some of them even die for the cause of complete stupidity.

 

[P95Carry]

Seems like in many cases, ''non-firearm'' firearms get a bad rep' .... simply because they have been used to dupe folks into believing they are the real thing.

Sure .. at a glance to most ... they seem plenty intimidating ... but if a kid wants to try and rob using one then he'd better decide in advance that he wants to risk getting shot .... with a ''real'' gun.

No cop - no homeowner ..... is gonna stop and check to see if these Airsofts are real guns or not .. and then when kids get taken out for trying this, the press has a hayday.

This is all more of the same .. attempts at control ... nothing more. Add in perhaps a smidgeon of ''it's for the children'' ... to keep the politico's happy!

 

[JohnBT]

Man killed by officer had shot pellet gun, police say

BY MARK BOWES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 25, 2004


A man fatally shot Saturday by a Henrico County police officer was armed with two pellet guns, one of which he fired before the officer killed him, authorities said.

The officer, who has nearly five years' experience, was about 35 to 40 feet from the man when the confrontation occurred about 1:30 p.m. in the 1300 block of Mountain Road, police said.

As the officer commanded the man to stop, the man walked toward the officer with CO2 pellet guns that resemble .45-caliber semiautomatic pistols. One was chrome-plated and the other was blue steel, police said.

The guns "looked like the real thing," said Henrico police Chief Henry W. Stanley Jr.

Police believe they know the man's identity but as of yesterday had not been able to confirm it. He was not carrying identification, and people believed to be his relatives have not responded to requests to help identify him, officials said.

The man, who lived in the Glen Allen area, had some "mental-health issues" that investigators are attempting to document, police said.

Police yesterday gave this ac- count of the events leading to the shooting:

At 1:27 p.m., police received a call from a woman who lives in the 8000 block of Langley Drive in the Glen Allen area. She reported that a man dressed in military camouflage and wearing a straw hat had been at her home looking for her daughter.

She said the man was "acting strangely" and told her he was leaving his car there for her daughter to keep. The man apparently knew the woman's daughter and had some previous contact with her, but police didn't elaborate on that connection.

Before walking away, the man told the woman he was "going home to his father, Jesus."

One of the officers dispatched to the call was approaching the area of Langley Drive when he spotted a man in the 1300 block of Mountain Road who fit the description given by the woman.

As the officer stepped out of his vehicle to investigate, "the contact escalated rapidly" when the man pulled a large chrome handgun, police said.

"The man then pointed the handgun directly at the officer," said Command Sgt. Carl Mueller in a police statement.

"Confronted by a display of deadly force," the officer drew his service pistol and fired several rounds at the man to stop his advance.

He dropped his weapon and collapsed after being shot. Police have not disclosed how many times the man was hit, nor whether the pellets fired by the man struck the officer.

Police said they immediately summoned emergency medical help, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The case remains under investigation by Henrico police, the Henrico commonwealth's attorney's office and the state medical examiner's office.

Police have declined to identify the officer involved in the shooting. He has been placed in an administrative assignment while the shooting investigation continues, which is standard procedure.

The officer was shaken by the shooting, according to a colleague on the force. "He is not the type of person who would do it unless it absolutely had to be done," the colleague said.

Saturday's shooting was the first in five years in which a criminal suspect was fatally wounded by a Henrico police officer.

 

[sendec]

Remember that criminals are not criminals because of their excellent decision making skills and advanced intelligence. Every evidence room in the country probably has a airgun in it that some buckethead robbed the local 7-11 with. Now of course there will be a kneejerk reaction to ban airsoft instead of stupidity. I just watched "National Lampoon's Vacation" for about the millionth time - "It could break the skin and cause a nasty infection"

The Henrico case sounds like suicide by cop.

 

[P95Carry]

The Henrico case sounds like suicide by cop.

On the evidence thus far - my thinking exactly.