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Uproar over airsoft and pellet guns
The Modesto Bee has the story.... A few highlights:
"Popular new pellet guns that look remarkably like real, lethal weapons have gotten at least one teenager killed in Florida and caused scares in communities around the country in recent months.
....
Modesto police were involved with another toy gun situation Tuesday afternoon when an officer found three teenage boys with two Airsoft handguns in an alley behind a grocery store, Gundlach said. ... He said the Airsoft handguns were confiscated and will be destroyed. "If it looks like a real gun, it's going to be treated like a real gun," Gundlach said.
Minnesota law makes it a crime to have a fake gun on school property. St. Paul City Councilman Lee Helgen is calling for an ordinance that would bar the carrying of replica guns in public. Other local governments are moving in the same direction.
After a 14-year-old boy with a BB gun was shot and wounded by police in Chicago over the summer, the City Council banned BB and pellet guns. And officials in Beaverton, Ore., are considering a ban on Airsoft guns.
.....
This fall alone:
Two high schools in Apple Valley, Minn., were locked down after a 14-year-old used a fake gun to shoot plastic pellets at other students. Two other students in the district brought fake guns to school recently.
In Melbourne, Fla., a 12-year-old boy was charged with aggravated battery for firing plastic pellets at elementary students at a bus stop.
A 16-year-old Millwood, Wash., boy was arrested on suspicion of shooting two students with an Airsoft pistol on their way to soccer practice.
Two high school students in Hurricane, W.Va., were suspended for having a pellet gun on campus.
"We're running into about one of these guns in possession of a juvenile per week," said Scott Johnson, police chief in Apple Valley. "This is dangerous. This could get somebody killed.""
12 Comments | Leave a comment
The more you suppress anything the more it expresses itself in unhealthy ways.
As an old retired cop, I would like to see the local departments spend some of their PR money arranging times and places for these kids to play with the air-soft and paint ball guns. If it's good enough for the cops to train with, it would be a blast for the kids and there would be a control factor.
Kids are going to play combat games. Make it fun and use it as a training tool for fun and responsibility.
No matter what anyone says I believe that these teenagers KNOW that these toy guns are looked at as real by the police and in schools. They aren't stupid, dumb yes, stupid no.
I am sorry but if a teenager pulls a toy gun on the police then the gene pool lifguard has just told him to get out of the pool before he messes it up.
Well, I guess it was fortunate that the boys were shooting the school bus with a pellet gun. If they had been throwing rocks (the device of choice in my group when I was a kid -- cheap and plentiful) what could they have done? Outlaw rocks? On second thought they would probably have prescribed Ritalin.
AntiqueCop is right, it would be supervised and channeled into a constructive activity, where both the youths and the old guys did something together and learned mutual respect. But NOOOOO, can't have anything constructive happening with guns, they're EEEEVIL!
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My neighbor's sons shoot at each other with those pellet guns in the middle of our steet. (I happen to be downhill from them). Not only do I have hundreds, if not thousands, of those stupid plastic pellets all over my driveway, side walk and lawn, but today I had to take my 2 yr old to the emergency room because she found one of the "pretty green balls" interesting and shoved it up her nose. Those guns are extremely dangerous. They present an obvious danger to the kids playing with them, but what about the innocent by-standers? In addition, those little plastic pellets are nothing less than garbage littering the neighborhood.
My daughter was lucky because we managed to get the pellet out of her nose before it caused any damage, but I would really like to see these toys taken off the market.
i am an actual airsoft user my self and i can say that airsoft guns are perfectly fine. for kids and teens alike. the chicogo city councle should not have baned the use of airsoft and bb guns thefore taking away the rights of every citzen in the city. and in my own perspective airsoft should be used wisely and with respect.
for me if you are going to play airsoft don't do it in public. jedsta
I'm also an airsoft enthusiast, and the FIRST thing we always tell people is that these are NEVER EVER for use in public. To the poster that had his child in the emergency room, I am sorry. I however would have suggested speaking to the parents of those kids much earlier about this issue.
We that play competitive airsoft are at risk from these people that make the poor decision to wield their replica weaponry in public.
I too am an airsoft enthusiast. I am also a father of two. What I do not agree with is kids playing with replicas in public and my kids don't. They know that the problems that they can create are not worth the fun that they have. Instead, they play on the weekends at the range with myself. It is a fantastic way to become closer to your children and teach them many life lessons, like teamspirit. To have a blanket ban on airsoft products would be idiotic, what we should rather be doing is educating the owners or perhaps a middle ground should be found (age restriction?).
Their kids, come on. They need to play. But they also should know what things they could or couldn't do. They have to trust you, and be sure that as a parent you teach them what's right. Not what you thing is right, but really righteus.
im a air rifle user and those things are dangerous there like a 22 caliber
Most of those incidents (without the police) sound like typical youngster hijinks from when I was a kid. Back then, when it got out of hand, the parents handled it amongst themselves.