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

[Dmitri Popov]

This is just another case of someone blaming an inanimate object for a crime. The bb gun didn't brandish itself, it took a living, breathing, semi-thinking individual.
Suicide-by-cop is a terrible, and exceptionally selfish way of killing ones-self
Most of the time the officer either never recovers fully from such an incident, or takes a very long time too. There is no point to trying regulate something like the bb guns and such, not when anyone with a pocket knife and a can of spray paint can widdle a convincing firearm replica from a 2x4. This is not anything that can be fixed by regulation, but something that must be dealt with at a family and community level.

 

[Zombiphobia]

Hey 9mmEpiphany, I get all that, not arguing your point, just saying... he might've been retarded and not trying to commit suicide by cop, just really really dumb, or maybe he WAS in it to be killed. Maybe he wanted to 'prove' something, god only knows what. Nobody knows, including you. You're merely speculating like everyone else.

I didn't say anything about sympathy and I have little to none for anyone involved. Cops don't need sympathy, anyway; they knew what they were doing when they joined the force, right? Same as anyone wanting to shake my hand and thank me for my 'service'.. puhfrickinlease. If you people only knew how many psychopaths, sociapaths and just plain crazy people join the military or police force for the chance to kill or to have the badge=authority, you'd think twice about that gratitude and 'sympathy'. Quite frankly it's insulting and disturbing how naive people like you can be.
And yes, I'm well aware I'll catch all sorts of Hell for that, but it's reality. Accept it or live in denial; your choice.

But it's really inconsequential now, isn't it? Just like the reasoning for this dummy doing what he did or what alternate action those cops may have miraculously pulled from their magic hats. The point is the guy did something incredibly stupid and the cops reacted.

Nobody knows why it happened, unless he told a classmate beforehand who may come forward and explain his whacky motives, but even then.. nobody really knows except him and he's dead now. Age and education level probably have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

But I really like how preachy you are about the whole thing. His parents should be angry at themselves for not preventing this... dude, there have been plenty of people who turned bad WITH good parenting. Some people are just born stupid and/or crazy.

Jeffery Dahmer had a 'good family'. He was a sociopath. Ted Bundy had a 'good family'- ooh sociopath. How about the guy that started the Jonestown cult??? Well he was a LOT of drugs which can and will destroy the mind. David Berkowitz(i dunno if I spelled that correctly)- Pyschopath. I have no clue about his upbringing.

But I'm sure you think all of these people had poor parenting because their parents failed to 'prevent' the atrocious actions their offspring committed. Some people are just simply wired that way. Being a sociopath, a pyschopath, suicidal and poorly reared imbecile are all different things.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

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.

Uhhh Starting to???? As usual, with a lot on here, reading is not fundamental! See post number 5 by ME then you may apologize. Everyone wants to jump on the pile without actually reading. As usual they THINK they know but 9 times out of 10 they have no idea. Just like some on here with their Darwin theories. I really hope natural selection passes their reproductive cycle with the attitudes they have towards kids. (Quoted part of post 5 for you jojo)

But parents seem to not feel the need to teach responsible behavior with these replicas. They seem to feel that their children can't get hurt with them since they are "just a toy".

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.

JonKSA, do you find it Reasonable and Prudent to hand your 8 year old kid the keys to your car and say "hit the road"? You find it reasonable and prudent to let your 5 year old go out to the pool alone? You find it reasonable and prudent to let a 6 year old take one of these toys out in public where someone that has absolutely no clue about firearms may yell gun and some young inexperienced LEO turns to see that toy pointed at him? Kid playing cops and robbers. Don't say that can't happen because it already HAS happened more than once!

My point here is to educate parents that these things CAN and HAVE BEEN mistaken MANY times for the real thing and have gotten children killed. It has happened more often over the past 10 years.

You guys with the ban logic going have that crap on your brains with every damn statement made that even HINTS of it leading to bans. While I find no logical reason for these toys to be perfect copies of real firearms, the toy makers are free to make them and people are free to buy them. It's a free society and I know this. Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors. My main point is the education of parents on the damn things. (wonder how many times I need to freaking type that before some of you guys will allow it to freaking sink in!) YES I would love to see some possible changes in them to make them more identifiable to LEO's and yes I can see the criminal element tapping in to that.

 

[Shadow 7D]

You guys with the ban logic going have that crap on your brains with every damn statement made that even HINTS of it leading to bans. While I find no logical reason for these toys to be perfect copies of real firearms, the toy makers are free to make them and people are free to buy them. It's a free society and I know this. Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors. My main point is the education of parents on the damn things. (wonder how many times I need to freaking type that before some of you guys will allow it to freaking sink in!) YES I would love to see some possible changes in them to make them more identifiable to LEO's and yes I can see the criminal element tapping in to that.

Then quit pulling arguments out of the Brady Bunch's play book

OR BETTER
quit blaming the 'toy gun'
an inanimate object (remember this is cover often in those 'irrational fear of guns' threads)

and blame the stupid idiot who decided to PULL A GUN ON COPS
whadda think they'd do, take him out for icecream??

YES I would love to see some possible changes in them to make them more identifiable to LEO's and yes I can see the criminal element tapping in to that

And that is a non starter, see they already are, so what's your brilliant idea, bright colors (easy to do with duracoat) orange muzzles (already mandated)

WHAT???
see
no you don't, and I doubt you will, since once again, you are stuck on equipment.
yeah training the parents are nice, but it still won't stop someone bent on killing themselves.

 

[JRH6856]

Yes, people need to be aware of the dangers of pointing anything at cops. (And I would add especially along the Rio Grande where drug cartels use juveniles as hit men.) You can teach, but you can't force anyone to learn. Some won't. When they don't, you can google the stories and list the tragedies. But you can't stop them, no matter how much you may want to. They are part of life. Teach your children well and hope they learn. It's really all you can do.

 

[dldbrandon]

Uhhh Starting to???? As usual, with a lot on here, reading is not fundamental! See post number 5 by ME then you may apologize. Everyone wants to jump on the pile without actually reading. As usual they THINK they know but 9 times out of 10 they have no idea. Just like some on here with their Darwin theories. I really hope natural selection passes their reproductive cycle with the attitudes they have towards kids. (Quoted part of post 5 for you jojo)





JonKSA, do you find it Reasonable and Prudent to hand your 8 year old kid the keys to your car and say "hit the road"? You find it reasonable and prudent to let your 5 year old go out to the pool alone? You find it reasonable and prudent to let a 6 year old take one of these toys out in public where someone that has absolutely no clue about firearms may yell gun and some young inexperienced LEO turns to see that toy pointed at him? Kid playing cops and robbers. Don't say that can't happen because it already HAS happened more than once!

My point here is to educate parents that these things CAN and HAVE BEEN mistaken MANY times for the real thing and have gotten children killed. It has happened more often over the past 10 years.

You guys with the ban logic going have that crap on your brains with every damn statement made that even HINTS of it leading to bans. While I find no logical reason for these toys to be perfect copies of real firearms, the toy makers are free to make them and people are free to buy them. It's a free society and I know this. Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors. My main point is the education of parents on the damn things. (wonder how many times I need to freaking type that before some of you guys will allow it to freaking sink in!) YES I would love to see some possible changes in them to make them more identifiable to LEO's and yes I can see the criminal element tapping in to that.

How would you go about making changes to make them more identifiable? It did almost happen. A lot of airsoft distributors are based in Cali because every airsoft part is made in China. It's less shipping that way. This past summer Cali tried to pass some law that stated that all replicas had to be brightly colored. Thankfully it failed. What about paintball? Those are already brightly colored and you still have the same problem. It was already brought up, but if you mandate that replicas have to look all goofy and colorful then criminals will make their real guns look just like that. Then you're back to square one. How do you know if he's holding a real weapon or not?

 

[beatledog7]

Simple truth:

This young person was shot not because of what he was holding but because of how he acted. Why he did what he did may never be known, but one thing is sure -- the next person who acts in a like manner faces the same end, and rightly so.

Actions have consequences. If you jump off a cliff, you hit whatever is below.

 

[Sam1911]

My point here is to educate parents that these things CAN and HAVE BEEN mistaken MANY times for the real thing and have gotten children killed. ... My main point is the education of parents on the damn things.

So...that ... like, IT?

The end of a 107 post long debate comes down to, "tell parents to tell their kids not to point realistic fake guns at cops?"

Really? Well I guess we can all agree on that.

Of course there are a WHOLE lot of other things that take the lives of several orders of magnitude more kids every year than this problem has in the last two and a half decades.

We should make sure we've got ad campaigns to remind parents to teach their kids not to try and breathe water, not to lie on train tracks, not to eat glass, and a great many other things which it seems most folks make it through life without having been specifically educated not to do.

Heck, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that more people are killed by GOATS each year than have died --ever-- due to this fake-gun/real-gun problem.

Every death is tragic, sure, but statistically insignificant anomalies will always be with us. Educating people about all of these self-obvious causes of death really isn't going to reduce the already galacticly small number of those events.

Going back to the original story (and yes, I know the example you used wasn't intended apparently to actually support your assertation...) this kid seems to be a shining example of the fact that folks DO KNOW what happens if you point fake guns at cops.

 

[Sam1911]

Oh, and...

Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors.

Don't be condescending. There are a whale of a lot of members here who have served their country. Many who have taken lives and many who've suffered injury in the line of duty. Your service doesn't give you any greater insight into this issue than anyone else has, nor does service in any way demand or instill some consensus with your opinion on this matter. Say what you feel you must, but let your words stand on their own merits. Don't make a call to authority based on your status as a veteran and don't insult others in a misguided attempt to denigrate their opinions.

 

[mgmorden]

For all the arguments shouting how realistic this gun looks and how that "caused" this, I'd like to submit an older example that this brought to mind:

http://articles.latimes.com/1997/nov/09/news/mn-52054

In this case noted, a teen was shot by LEO (thankfully non-fatallay) holding a Three Muskateers Candy Bar, with the candy bar being confused for a gun.

Trust me, in the heat of the moment it doesn't matter if he was holding a opened up stapler. If there's anything in his hands that looks like there's a barrel and a grip, then cops are going to interpret it as a gun (because the cost of wondering is quite possibly their lives).

By the same token, as Sam1911 noted, with Durakote (and even manufacturer's options) out now, there are plenty of brightly colored guns out there that are completely real:

Tori Nonaka can be seen here using her signature "purple slide" Glock:


Heck being a Clemson fan I'm seriously considering having my M&P's frame done in purple with the removeable backstrap in orange.

It's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to differentiate between a real gun and a toy gun at a glance. Any time of "identifier" you add is either already invalid, or can be defeated (in either direction - to make toy guns look real or real guns look like toys) so easily as to make such a venture worthless.

Once we make all the toys guns look fake are you going to come back around championing the cause again when a cop gets shot with a real gun that just happened to be marked like a toy one?

This whole discussion makes about as much sense as trying to get cops to make sure that the gun being held is actually loaded before they fire. All you're going to end up with is a lot more dead cops.

 

[hso]

I do NOT care about statistics when it comes to kids.

Then reason has nothing to do with your position and you self-identify that you're willing to change something for everyone based solely on an emotional response to a statistically insignificant risk. There's no broad problem to correct here with these toys and you do not make changes based on statistically insignificant incidents.

And, NO, we're not on your side of the argument if you continue to blame the toy in any way. You argued that the toy is the problem and then claim that WE get the point that the parent and the child have the responsibility to understand that brandishing something that is or looks like a weapon at others is dangerous to the point of being suicidally stupid. WE don't blame the toy for the apparent failures of this teenager and his parents of the most fundamental good sense of not brandishing a weapon at the police in the hallways of a school and neither should you. Make a clear statement abandoning your original position that the toy was responsible for the incident and that all such items need to be changed and people will quit bringing it up as your current opinion.

You can not blame an item for the behavior of an individual.

Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors.

That is completely irrelevant to a discussion of a teen killed in school by police because he brandished what appeared to be a weapon unless you've killed or had someone killed only to find they didn't pose a real threat. Your personal experience with combat gives you expertise to claim with combat and the trauma associated with use of lethal force and nothing more.

 

[HarleyFixer]

You CANNOT regulate stupidity. The problem is we have tried to eliminate bad behavior and it cannot be done.

 

[Hacker15E]

Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors.

Thanks for your service.

So have a lot of the people reading/posting in this thread, so it's pretty bad form to think that such service/actions means you "know it a little more" than "a lot of you". That's a pretty hefty assumption, and a terrible way of validating your opinion.

 

[Birch Knoll]

Considering I have fought, bled, and killed for this country I may know it a little more than a lot of you armchair keyboard warriors.

Your service may have been honorable, but waving it around as an insignia of superiority is not. Bad form.

 

[fallout mike]

Freedom fighter, I had no idea you were military! Now that I know I'm forced to agree with you. Real guns and toy guns should only be bought with written permission from the govt.

 

[3KillerBs]

What can be done differently? Teach your kids to not do such things, and if possible, positively influence your kids' friends. Volunteer for community services at the YMCA or Big Brother/Big Sister. Try to educate them as to consequences of behavior and provide some type of discourse that helps them realize that when you are 15, you have a whole life to look forward to. That is where to start.

...

That's the bottom line there.

The toy is not to blame. The young man who chose to misuse it made his tragic decision for reasons of his own and, had all non-gunpowder-powered projectile throwers been visibly distinctive would have used a kitchen knife or an ax or a baseball bat instead.

 

[3KillerBs]

....

I'd think though, if the cops in this story new for a fact the gun was capable of firing only pellets, the kid would still be alive today, albeit with a sore butt and a juvenile record. Not to mention the cops who I'm sure wished the story had a different ending.

You can kill someone with a pellet airgun.

Its easier with a .45, but "lucky" shot placement will do will do the job with the pellet gun.

There's no "only" involved when the business end of a weapon is being pointed at you.

 

[3KillerBs]

... 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. ...

What part of "people like them that way" did you find unintelligent?

The first pistol I ever shot, the coolest thing in the college dorm I lived in, was a friend's Crossman SoftAir Luger. It was cool because it was just like the real thing -- even to throwing the empty shells in your face. And in the early '80's airsoft guns didn't have the orange tips.

I was hoping for an airsoft Beretta 92 under the Christmas tree myself. I don't want it in candy pink or neon green because I'm not 10 years old anymore.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Would you consider this non-realistic enough? (sidenote: these are both the current rage on my son's college campus...an Art College in CA)

or maybe this:


While, as a LEO, I would take a moment to investigate further if encountered in public, the response would change completely if I had to respond to a call and had one suddenly pointed at me.

The call from the school was that a student was on campus with a handgun and had already assualted another student. Teachers could be heard pleading with him to put the gun down. When the police arrived, he ran down a hallway (invalidating the suggestion that they could have tased him or used pepper spray). The officers could be heard yelling, "Put down the gun" and "Put it on the ground". He could be heard yelling, "I'm ready to die"

It wasn't the gun/toy that caused the shooting. It was caused by his actions that afternoon

 

[medalguy]

Just suppose that kid had stepped out in front of an 18 wheeler. Would you be calling for a ban on 18 wheelers? If anyone wants to die they will find a way.

Hey life isn't fair. I learned that at about age 4.

 

[mgmorden]

Would you consider this non-realistic enough? (sidenote: these are both the current rage on my son's college campus...an Art College in CA)

Even then, after a can of spray paint:



If someone points that at a LEO or anyone else you can bet they're going to take it as a threat. There's just no time to determine whether or not the guns real.

Realistically, any attempt at "codifying" real vs toy guns under some steadfast rule is folly.

 

[youngda9]

This was suicide by cops. The cops absolutely did the right thing.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[Black Butte]

Darwin called it "natural selection."

 

[InkEd]

You cannot blame an inanimate object for properly doing it's designated function. The problem is the people using them. They exist because people want them. The vast majority of my toy guns were VERY realistic. Many were made prior to the use of the red and later orange muzzle caps. I was taught to never point them at strangers or police.

I see little difference between airsoft guns and the toys I had as a kid.

 

[hso]

There really doesn't seem to be any point of going on having everyone argue against the idea that the item is responsible in any way for the behavior of a teen that made a series of very bad decisions that lead to his death.