What could be done differently -- Non-Guns Color Coded?

[hso]

73 examples over a 25 year period when the U.S. Census puts the number of 10-19 year olds as approximately 40,000,000 in 2011?

That's not even close to being statistically significant as a public health issue. Before you start calling for some sort of universal action you have to look at the rates of incidents to determine first if there's any general threat to the public at large. Even at 73 out of 40,000,000, where 73 is too large a number for shot by someone not recognizing the "toy" as a toy, you have a rate of 1.82500 × 10exp-6. Adjusted to a standard rate based on 100,000 population you still only get a rate of 1.8. That's for a single year, but you've quoted a 25 year window so the rate would be reduced to 1/25th or to 0.072 deaths due to "toy" guns per 100,000 per year.

While every one of those deaths is individually tragic, there is no statistically significant "problem" warranting a call for broad action.
The facts don't bear out the emotional response.

 

[buck460XVR]

While this was a tragic event, it was NOT a case of a child accidentally shot while holding a toy gun. The gun in question was NOT a toy, it was an adult air pistol. One that had to be purchased by an adult, to be used for legitimate shooting purposes i.e target shooting, small game hunting. There was no legitimate reason for it to have a red tipped barrel or to be "color coded". The young man was told several times to drop the weapon and chose not to, he had also already committed a violent act. He supposedly pointed the weapon at the police in a threatening manner. He made several bad choices and it cost him his life. Why........ we will never know or understand. But......the other thing I will never understand is why the police involved deemed it necessary to employ the "Mozambique Drill" on a 15 year old that was obviously out numbered and definitely much less skilled than the officers. Why it was decided to shoot to kill instead of shooting to disable. Sorry but this was an obvious immature individual with no formal gun training confronted by adults with intense training for just this type of situation. Altho I believe the police acted within the legal limits of the law, and had other students in close proximity of danger to protect, this was a situation where it had to have been obvious that shooting the young man in a nonlethal spot would have more than likely ended the standoff. At least it should have been considered or attempted before using the "Rhodesian double tap" to take him out.

 

[Rembrandt]

Only recently our society has declared 26 year old's as children......150 years ago a 12 year old was expected to take the responsibilities of adulthood, and most of those were more mature than today's 30 year old. If we had more adults today understand and teach responsibility to their kids, there wouldn't be a need for color coded toy guns.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Has it been covered yet on rather or not this kid was special ed or not?

He was a 15 year old who was in the 8th grade...most of his classmates would have been 13 or just turning 14. That means either he had a late birthday and was held back one year or he was held back two years

How many of you would still say a mentally challenged juvenile was making a dramatic exit, committing suicide, well aware of his actions etc..? Just curious, since nobody here knows exactly why he acted so stupid and it's all speculation and judgement based on what we ASSUME to be 'fact'.

It doesn't matter, just was we'll never know, the officers can not know his state of mind or his intent. They reacted to his actions as they were trained to do. They are the ones who need sympathy...especially now that they have started receiving death threats at the station

His parents are whining about why the police killed their son... they obviously are not well educated on the subject since pointing a firearm at someone is generally perceived as a life-threatening gesture. Not "brace yourself for the punch".

His parents are lashing out because they are angry. But their anger should be turned inward to not having prevented this from occurring. Suicide, which is what I believe this was, isn't a spontaneous occurrence. It is something which is given thought before action occurs. They'll have to eventually face the fact that they missed or ignored the signs before this incident started

 

[bikerdoc]

Upseting as it may be to some, this young man made some bad decisions.

Is it sad? Yes.

Will it make me more consciencious to discuss and educate the numorous, grandkids, nephews, nieces, and neighborhood kids? Yes.

Will it move me to action to ban such items? No.

 

[9mmepiphany]

I DID say that I personally see no reason for toy guns to look so realistic

... what I am proposing is trying to find a way to easily differentiate (tell them apart for those that seem to not be able to grasp that word) these things from the real thing.

... to TRY to make our kids a bit safer?

... Read a few of those and get back to me about how the toy isn't part of the problem. If after reading those you still feel that way, then you have no concept of the real world.

...I am NOT saying ban the damn things, although I still see no reason for a kid to be given free reign with one, but what I AM more or less saying is try to modify not only the toys but the PARENTS with warnings and such.

It makes no difference what it looks like. There are stacks of cases where people have been shot holding everything from a wallet, to a cell phone , to a stick. If it is presented as a weapon, it will be perceived as a weapon.

LEO's rolled their eyes when they passed the law requiring that toy guns have bright orange tips in this country. We all knew that the bad guys who were serious about possibly having to shoot it out with cops would be painting the tips of their guns orange just to give us a moments pause.

This truely isn't a gun or toy gun issue...except to the media...it is a sad tale of a child who didn't know how else to handle a problem

 

[TexasBill]

I am going to be politically incorrect.

The youth was 15 years old in the eighth grade. As noted above, that means there had already been some problems in his school career. The Texas cutoff for a school year is the first of September and there's no combination of birth dates that has a student in eighth grade at the age of fifteen without being held back one, or even possibly, two, years. In Texas, a child can be held back for either scholastic or disciplinary problems, so we have no way of knowing what factors shaped this young man's thinking.

One of the factors that has been overlooked is pride, however misplaced it might be. The young man doesn't need to have had a death wish; he simply may have been unwilling to show what he perceived as weakness by backing down and complying with the officers' orders. Combine that with the fact young people often confuse immaturity with immortality and you have a situation where the youth could actually have thought that, because of his age, the officers would back down and nothing would happen. This idea has been reinforced in enough popular media that it may have had an impact on whatever he was thinking. Here's the politically incorrect part: this kind of bravado is especially prevalent among young Hispanic males.

While I do have sympathy for the family of the young man, I feel more badly about the two officers who must now deal with the fact they killed a boy who had only a toy gun. It doesn't matter that it was justified and by the book; it's a load I would hate to carry and I wish them the best.

The argument over the marking of toy guns goes way back. When I was in junior high, a company called Palmer made very realistic scale models of the M1911 and P08 Luger pistols. They even fired small wooden pellets. By the time I was in high school, the kits had been discontinued because of complaints the guns were so realistic, they had been used in the commission of crimes.

Airsoft guns have all the markings they need and it's illegal in some states to alter, remove or paint over the bright orange tips. There's no way to kept anyone from breaking that law.

Those of us with children want to do everything we can to ensure their safety and well-being. However, the world is not sanitized for your protection and, ultimately, we have to hope life's little lessons don't cause too much pain.

The story about the mother, the kid and the sandwich reminded me of some folks I knew: they were ardent pacifists; no "war toys," no guns, no swords for their little angel. They raised him up right: immediately after graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Marines.

 

[ugaarguy]

This really isn't a gun issue. Sam1911, hso, 9mmE, and others have explained why in more detail. What this is, is a mental health & suicide prevention education issue.

What we can take away from this is that we need to do a much better job of educating parents, teachers, and young people how to recognize the signs of mental distress & suicidal tendencies in their their children / students / peers. We can't force this education on the parents, but we can offer it. We can make make this training / education an annual requirement for all school faculty & staff, and for all students from something like 6th grade on.

The US Air Force implemented such a program in the early 2000s, and it so dramatically decreased death by suicide that it was adopted DoD wide. Modifying this program to suit middle & high school aged children, and the faculty & staff of such schools would be a good start. Again, this a mental health education issue, and not a gun safety issue.

 

[Dnaltrop]

to my 9 year old daughter. "What would happen if you pointed a toy gun that looked like a real gun at a police officer? "

"They'd shoot me Daddy...Duh!!"

It could be sheer innocence... I was lucky to have an understanding teacher when I brought a fork/spoon/knife combo to lunch as a Kindergartner.

Sadly I have trouble finding any innocent use in a mock firearm in a school, and suicide by cop, or a botched attempt at intimidation (bully possibly? ) seems the likely root.

 

[jojo200517]

The phrase "ya can't fix stupid" comes to mind, along with "if your gonna be stupid you better be tough". Sure its sad he died, but to me it was his choice, whether it was an attempt at suicide or just a dumb choice it ended up costing him his life. I don't get too bent out of shape when someone dies, its the way life is, none of us make it out alive.

I'm 24 and I remember my first cap gun was revolver shaped and the hammer actually moved to fire the caps when you pulled the trigger, and it looked very much like a .357 magnum (and was probably about the same size since it barely fit my hands). We didn't have orange tips back in the day, but mom and dad told me to not point it at anyone I didn't know cause they may not realize it was a toy. Same thing when I got a BB pistol a few years later. Looking up google images of it I realize that its not a replica of any particular gun that I know of but it looked plenty real enough and if pointed at a cop would very likely got you shot. Again I received warning from my parents about pointing it at anyone. I knew better by common sense but my parents made sure that I hadn't forgotten or became otherwise dumb to the matter.

Now I see the majority of them have an orange tip but whats to keep someone from coloring it over, sure it may be illegal but thats never prevented it from happening. I find it disturbing that I see an airsoft gun in walmart that looks almost identical to a draco pistol with a 20 round mag and from 10 feet away the only difference one could really tell is the orange flash hider/muzzle break. I don't find it disturbing that the toy looks like a real gun as much as that 3 isles over there is bright florescent orange paint and I could easily make a real gun look like a toy. So where is the ban it crowd here? Should we ban the toy, the real thing, or the paint? /sarcasam

So the AR guys don't feel left out, I have a good friend that has an actual ar15 that is all black and an airsoft one that is blue and white. They are within fractions of inches of being identical in size and shape. I went over one day not knowing about the toy one and it was laying on his bed and I said, holy poop who did you get to duracoat your AR and didn't realize it was a toy until I picked it up.

First time I seen a Beretta Neos .22 with the blue inlay grips I actually thought it was a kids toy. It looked like some kinda space ray gun thing to me.

Ok I have seen MANY trying to point to me as some sort of anti. Could ANYONE please point out where I have said to legislate, make illegal, or ban a damn thing?

I will.

How do you propose that we make the manufactures make them

...bright freaking purple with neon signs saying "I'M A TOY GUN...

without legislations, bans or otherwise making the non marked ones illegal?

 

[hso]

Dnaltrop,

I asked nearly the same question of my 13 year old daughter and her response was, "They'd have to shoot to protect themselves".

I also asked her if she thought anyone in her 8th grade would do something like that while in school and she said, "Not unless they wanted to die".

***

This is a tragic case of a young person making even more tragic decisions. It isn't an accident to be prevented.

 

[Shadow 7D]

And to those of you equating this to "Assault weapons bans" and instances like that, you have obviously not read a damn thing I have written in this post.

Freedom fighter (ugh, ok, your moniker and then the side you choose on this, well...)

YOU ARE ARGUING THE OUTLIER
using an emotional appeal ("for the kids" the EXACT ONE the brady bunch uses)
falsely attributing this adults, individual, person of a age of the reason
death to a toy,
INSTEAD of his actions, sorry but there ain't no cure for stupid

I would rather argue the premise from the side of the officer, how do you think THEY feel, having a teenager (who really, if you know psychology are the most cold blooded of killers)

So, why are you like the brady bunch
you are using their entire line of reasoning, so you both fit in the same category.


So far we have the story
"kid pulls gun on cop"
gun is fake
kid doesn't put the weapon down even after multiple warnings
kid is dead

reasonable chain of action

your take away
"real guns and toy guns shouldn't look alike"

but here you are arguing a categorical fallacy, see Xgun not like Ygun - Ok, I give you that BUT, they are BOTH categorically gun


OK, and now the kicker
in more than a few states (Californian being a leader)
your ENTIRE line of reasoning has played out,
AND, now "Toys" are designated by having a orange muzzle or in some other way easily identifiable (and much of that was argued from the standpoint of the officer, NOT perp)

so, if said kid, disables such safety devices, well
once again you end up trying to legislate action and offer an equipment fix for a user problem.

Naw, argue your outliers, have fun, 'every kid counts' and all that
I'd rather work on firearms education to address those who unsafely handled a real gun, than rant for more useless BS legislation.

 

[Geno]

As I read the article, I remain confused as to if the weapon was a pellet pistol, BB pistol or an Air Soft. The previous two absolutely can kill. There was a recent news article of a young man shot by a roommate with a pellet gun. The hospital missed the injury, and the kid died. Ergo, proof that they can be lethal. The problem for LEOs is to determine what the "perp" is holding, and what intent the perp has. It is sad that a young man died. It is equally sad that this LEO will have to live with this event for life. It is tragic that so many children had to be witness to this whole series of events.

Geno

 

[jerkface11]

We all knew that the bad guys who were serious about possibly having to shoot it out with cops would be painting the tips of their guns orange just to give us a moments pause.

Has that ever happened?

 

[Sam1911]

You seem to be writing faster than your brain can process.

...

Unless it was sarcasm for sarcasm's sake. If so, save it for someone who'll appreciate it.

Hooo boy. Yes, you missed the sarcasm train. If the irony did not strike you as apt, feel free to disregard that post.

 

[Sam1911]

Read a few of those and get back to me about how the toy isn't part of the problem. If after reading those you still feel that way, then you have no concept of the real world.

In the real world, hso's response matches mine precisely. The issue you seem to be redirecting toward is a non-issue. And, even so, the event which has caused all this debate to come to the fore doesn't relate to it in any way.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

Dnaltrop,

I asked nearly the same question of my 13 year old daughter and her response was, "They'd have to shoot to protect themselves".

I also asked her if she thought anyone in her 8th grade would do something like that while in school and she said, "Not unless they wanted to die".

HSO and Dnaltrop have BOTH illustrated exactly what I am talking about. They seem to have GOTTEN my meaning!!! If we EDUCATE the parents, then they will EDUCATE the children!!! They have both educated their children with simple common freaking sense (I know, it's not that common anymore).

But HSO, I have to completely disagree with you on your other post. Losing a single child is a loss period. I do NOT care about statistics when it comes to kids. As I said, that was just ONE link out of over 11000 hits but even if that were in actuality the only ones, it's too damn many! I love my kids and my grandkids more than life itself. As should ANY parent. To me this is not a "the sky is falling" issue but a real, documented, factual problem.

Yes the first link I put up was more than likely the result of a mentally disturbed kid with some serious issues and probably not the best case to present for this. I saw it this morning when I opened my home page and it just disturbed the hell out of me. Again I will say that I can't hold any fault towards the LEO's response. But what I CAN hold fault to is the fact that IF there were some way for them to have identified that pellet gun as that, then maybe the poor kid would have survived and gotten the help he so desperately needed.

The responses I have seen from many of you truly saddens me because of the callousness you so easily portray. Had it been one of your children, I truly doubt that you would be saying the same damn things that you are saying such as Darwinism and Natural selection. I am positive that ANY child that has fallen to this had parents that thought "won't happen to my kid". It very well could happen if you don't teach your child responsible behavior EVEN WITH A TOY GUN.

Will it make me more consciencious to discuss and educate the numorous, grandkids, nephews, nieces, and neighborhood kids? Yes.

Again the light has dawned!!! BikerDoc Thank you for seeing the point as well!

 

[RioShooter]

I am a teacher at the school where the shooting took place. The situation was handled professionally by the staff and law enforcement. The positive actions by the staff and PD rarely make it into the press. But everything I observed was handled in a textbook manner. My thanks and gratitude goes out to the PD for keeping everyone safe and secure.

 

[Sam1911]

But......the other thing I will never understand is why the police involved deemed it necessary to employ the "Mozambique Drill" on a 15 year old that was obviously out numbered and definitely much less skilled than the officers.

How do you know this was a "Mozambique" drill. Did one officer shoot him three times or did three officers all fire at once, striking him in different places?

Not that it really matters...

Why it was decided to shoot to kill instead of shooting to disable. Sorry but this was an obvious immature individual with no formal gun training confronted by adults with intense training for just this type of situation.

Well, I'm not sure what training these officers had. It may or may not have been anything most of us would call "intense" -- but again, that's not really relevant.

They needed to shut off that individual's ability to inflict harm on others immediately. If you've been around here for long, you'll know that if you need to shoot, you need to shoot to stop a threat that is immediate and deadly. Death is absolutely an anticipated and acceptable result.

He has a gun, he's threatening others and presenting that gun at you, your fellow officers, and bystanders. You have one half of a fraction of a second to stop what's about to happen. You do NOT try to shoot him in the foot or shoot the gun out of his hand or pull some other "Lone Ranger" stunt. Wound him, and someone else is likely to DIE.

Altho I believe the police acted within the legal limits of the law, and had other students in close proximity of danger to protect, this was a situation where it had to have been obvious that shooting the young man in a nonlethal spot would have more than likely ended the standoff. At least it should have been considered or attempted before using the "Rhodesian double tap" to take him out.

So, when you shoot him in the gut or the knee, and he spends his last few seconds emptying his magazine into you and the children and teachers nearby, how are you going to explain the wisdom there? We didn't know FOR SURE he would kill anyone, so we wounded him and gave him one last chance to "off" some folks?

 

[9mmepiphany]

Has that ever happened?

While conducting a Probation Search, we have recovered airsoft ones that had been painted black and we've also found ones painted lurid colors. But we have not had an officer involved shooting involving them.

 

[jojo200517]

But what I CAN hold fault to is the fact that IF there were some way for them to have identified that pellet gun as that, then maybe the poor kid would have survived and gotten the help he so desperately needed.

Your still blaming the inanimate object for this happening. As the examples given in my previous post and others there isn't any way to really give a 100% positive way to ID a toy gun as a toy and a real gun as a real one from any distance that the end user couldn't reverse to make the toy gun look more realistic or the real gun look more like a toy.

I'll agree with you that properly educating the children is key. Me and several other members made that point, and I see you are coming around.

Again the light has dawned!!! BikerDoc Thank you for seeing the point as well!

I think your light is trying really hard to come on and for you to see that its not the toys fault but you gotta quit fiddling with the switch or you'll blow out the bulb.

As for officers being shot with a real gun made to look like a toy, no, I don't have any examples of that happening. I do remember a thread a good while back about an article where a guy was legally open carrying an AK (don't recall if it was a draco or an underfolder) that was confronted by authorities about it. He had painted the flash hider bright orange so other people would think it was a toy and wouldn't freak out. I'm not sure if he was charged with anything or not.

 

[psyork22]

A real answer to the issue of guns and kids

I just had this conversation the other day with my F-I-L. His grandsons and my nephews want to start shooting. I love this idea. The problem is they want to shoot my AR-15 and Glock 17 with 32 round mag, etc. The real problem is the lack of gun education, rules of shooting and these darn video games. I learned on a 22 single shot while having to know all the safety principles first and guess what, I had a blast and was hooked for life. O.K. so my solution would to have these kids pass a "safety course" before they could play these first person shooter. It could be marketed a training and trivia at the beginning of the game. It would be a start. As for the student with the plastic gun, I would have reacted the same as LEO. Sad but true, I would have shot him also.

 

[JohnKSa]

But you still aren't getting my meaning here. The parents are led to believe that these things are completely safe and such. Yes the toy in and of itself is perfectly safe, the LOOKS of the toy are not.

I do get it. The problem is that no matter what action taken, a kid can circumvent it pitifully easily if he wants to.

He can modify an existing toy gun that doesn't look real.

He can make his own toy gun and make it look real.

He can take something that doesn't even look much like a gun and use it like the guy in the video used his cellphone and still make people think he has a gun.

Absolutely! When it comes to the safety of children, YES! Anything and everything should be done that is humanly possible to protect them.

That concept is one that is paralyzing. No matter what you do to make kids safe, I can come up with a way that is humanly possible to make them a little safer. The idea that we should do EVERYTHING humanly possible would be impossibly destructive to a functioning society.

We should do what is REASONABLE and PRUDENT to protect children. If we were to do EVERYTHING that is humanly possible, kids wouldn't be allowed to ride in cars, swim in swimming pools, go out and have contact with other kids who might pass illnesses to them, shoot, play with animals that can spread diseases or act unpredictably at times, travel in airplanes, the list is literally ENDLESS.

You have to introduce the concept of "reasonable" into the equation or there's no end to the restrictions that "must" be imposed in the interest of "saving the children."

I DID say that I personally see no reason for toy guns to look so realistic and I have YET to see anyone give one single intelligent answer to that question.

The reason is the same reason ANY toy is ever made to look realistic.

The thing is, you have to look at both sides. You don't restrict people just because you can't think of a reason for them to be unrestricted. You have to show a benefit to the restriction that outweighs the fact that people should have the right to make the choices they want to. Our society is based on the idea that "Because I want to." is a plenty good enough reason to do most anything.

To restrict a person from pursuing happiness in whatever manner they choose, one doesn't simply say: "Give me a good reason why you should be allowed to do it.", instead, our system requires that it be PROVEN that there is at least one, preferably more than one, good reason why people should NOT be allowed to do a thing.

Trying to eliminate realistic toy guns to prevent accidental police shootings does not make sense because it's not possible, nor does it solve the problem even if it were possible.

I posted a video of a guy who was shot when cops mistook his cell phone for a gun, so even if it were possible to eliminate anything that looks like a gun AND prevent anyone from ever making anything that looks like a gun, someone could still create enough confusion to get shot by brandishing practically anything shiny under the proper circumstances.

And for parents to get the fact that yes, while they are just toys, they CAN be seen as a deadly weapon and they have gotten kids killed so teach your child some damn responsibility or don't buy them one of these things!

How much of the public's money are you willing to spend to educate parents on how to train their kids? How much would it take? Or are you going to shift the cost to the makers of toy guns? Why should they be penalized because parents don't know enough to teach their kids responsibility?

I understand you're well-meaning, but everything you're proposing is either going to be ineffective at solving the problem you want to solve or it's aimed at penalizing or restricting people who aren't part of the problem.

If after reading those you still feel that way, then you have no concept of the real world.

This is just a fancy way of saying, if you disagree with me then you're living in a fantasy world.

Do I need to slow it down for you? You aren't usually slow.

This is a not so fancy way of saying that if you disagree with me you're "slow".

Is that how you normally win debates? By switching to insults when the facts don't support your arguments?

 

[Geno]

RioShooter:

Thanks for that post. I wish you didn't have the "inside-story" on this experience. I wish nobody did. That aside, I hope all progresses well for all involved, and that calmer heads prevail in future discussions of how to avoid repeats of this nature.

Geno

 

[Ringolevio]

My 2 cents' worth...

TexasBill:

Here's the politically incorrect part: this kind of bravado is especially prevalent among young Hispanic males.

Oh, so were the cops being "culturally insensitive" by not factoring this in?

If so,, consider that another attitude that is prevalent among young Hispanic males is that driving while drunk is muy, muy macho.

So when (as happened around here just recently) an illegal alien from Mexico gets blotto, drives the wrong way on a freeway ramp and kills a mother and her child, should we say it's not his fault because it's part of his "culture"?

If you're gonna live here, get with the program of how things are done in this country. What part of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" is being lost in translation?

One of the principles of American culture, as regards the police, is the "presumption of regularity". That means when a cop tells you to do something, whether it's "drop the weapon" or just "step back", you don't say "Why?" or "By what authority?", you just do it!

As to color-coding: The other day at my local gunsmith's, I saw a Heckler & Koch VP70 for sale. I couldn't help but think that if I painted it some bright color it would totally look like a "cosmic ray-gun", and if I started waving it around, folks would just think I was playing Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, until I started shooting.

Anyone who wants to blame the object for this tragedy is using the same flawed logic as those who want to ban guns altogether. By that same "logic", if statistically the most traffic deaths involve a blue Chevy, just think how many lives we can save by banning blue Chevys!

Abusus non tollit usum; "Abuse does not take away use"; abuse is not an argument against legitimate use.