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Seriously, is there a reason a BB gun needs to look exactly like a center-fire pistol? How many more kids need to get killed before a law prevents BB gun makers from producing such realistic toy guns? Toy = Not Firing Deadly Rounds. If not for the magazine feed, it'd be near impossible to distinguish this BB gun from an actual Beretta 92/96. I won't even start with the parents that buy these things...
 
A bit of perspective is needed here: realistic toy guns are nothing new. Over 40 years ago, we had life-size AR15's (Mattel) and M1911's/M14's (Johnny Eagle) and Colt Peacemakers (Fanner 50). Cops didn't shoot kids with toy guns (on a regular, expected, and excused basis) because cops knew then that they were paid to deal with risk, make the distinction and not make a mistake. Somehow then, they DID make the distinction on a regular, expected basis, and knew there would be no excuse if they didn't. What has changed is not the toys. What has changed is that cops now are trained that they have the right and the means to eliminate risk. (Distinguished from the right to eliminate true threat, as was the case in years gone by.)
 
What has changed is that cops now are trained that they have the right and the means to eliminate risk. (Distinguished from the right to eliminate true threat, as was the case in years gone by.)

YES!!!! It's the paramilitary training that cops now receive, combined with the change in attitude toward risk that is the problem.
 
I had a Beretta 92 c02 pellet gun when I was younger. Looked exactly like the real thing except for the lanyard mount on the bottom of the mag that doubled as the co2 canister punch. I liked toy guns that looked as close to the real thing as possible. I even removed those orange tips from my cap guns. My solution to not getting shot is to not point the thing at a cop and treat it like it is a real gun because that's exactly what it looks like.
We don't need more laws, we need smarter citizens. Do you support Bloomberg's ban on duracoat in NY?
 
YES!!!! It's the paramilitary training that cops now receive, combined with the change in attitude toward risk that is the problem.

To be fair, the police wouldn't adopt this attitude that 'everyone is a threat' unless they felt it wasn't needed. I was born when Kennedy was President and times were different then. We had toy guns but we also had a respect for the police because they had real guns. We weren't afraid of the police, we respected them. That can't be said these days and blaming the police for this change in attitude is well, just wrong.
 
I would say it's the parents fault not the maker of the toy. What ever happened to teaching them safe gun handling and nit pointing a gun at anything you don't intend to kill....

I had many toy co2/bb guns when I was young but was taught and smart enough to be RESPONSIBLE with them.
 
Caden 08 and All2Kool
Agree with you
The number one goal of a police officer should be to return home alive at the end of each day. If they cannot protect themselves - we have lost.

We were always taught to treat every thing that looked like a gun as real ( BB, CO2, play, etc).
Our parents educated us.
Police were respected.
Back then every kid had a BB gun - every store had BB's. Yeah a few windows were accidently hit.

But I have got to tel you - if I was a policeman today and someone pointed a gun at me I would assume it is real.
So it really comes down to the parents and training. but parents seem to want someone else to be responsibility for them. Hence much of our education problems.

If you are at a parade and someone pulls out a real looking pistol - what would you do? You only get a couple seconds.
Now I would never have taken a gun - real or not to a parade.

So responsiblity really lies with parents. If you are an adult - I am guessing you have areal gun.
 
Just a few other points to make. I think a large portion of the problems may be occurring in cities. If this is the case then why would the parents even allow a child to have a BB gun of any type. They are not legal to shoot within city limits that I am aware of. I think that the parents who allow their children to have a gun of any type (toy, squirt, BB, etc) need to educate their child about guns and how to use them properly. Today is far different then when I was a kid. I was given my first 10/22 at 10yrs old. I had my first Ruger pistol at 12 yrs old and so did my friends in the area. We would all go out and shoot squirrels, birds, salamanders, and ant hills. We were raised to be responsible with these guns. But to be honest.....I can not even imagine giving a 10yr old a BB gun, let alone a 10/22 and letting them run wild with it today. Times have changed as far as I can tell. ****...you cant even spank yer kid without getting in trouble yourself.
The police are dealing with so many different things today that were not a significant problem back then. There are now rampant gang problems with younger and younger members trying to make a name for themselves. These kids are running around with real guns and committing real crimes. I don't think cops have the luxury that they once had years ago. There needs to be greater responsibility placed on the parents. Society also plays a role here.
And for the record......Many BB guns can be fatal and cause grave bodily harm. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one.
 
Perhaps I was not clear enough, and for that I apologize. Responses here make two assumptions: First,that I was in some way "blaming cops". What I actually tried to communicate is that they are trained differently. For the individual cop, his training and implementation of it, he is not to blame. As to some persons' belief that nationwide, being a cop nowadays is more dangerous than in years gone by, the anecdotal evidence might lead one to believe that, but I'd have to see empirical evidence adjusted for number of current officers vs. death rate on the job (and only from armed suspects) to believe that myself. Lacking such statistics, I currently DO NOT believe being a cop is more dangerous than in years past. And let's dispense right here with any notion that being a police officer is anywhere near the most dangerous of professions. It rates nowhere near, for example, a job as an underground excavator.

The second assumption (made more than once in this thread) is that cops that shoot kids with toy guns always have waited till the kid pointed the gun at the cop.

I speak not from speculation. My father was a police officer in a wide-open town in Nevada, then Montana, then a US Marshal. No one can tell me (and no one could tell him) that Winnemucca in 1962 (Prostitution, Gambling, Mafia, etc., etc., etc.,) was less dangerous for a police officer than current East L.A. I was a military policeman, and now am in a position to witness police response to any call that mentions a gun. Such response (not their fault: it is they way they are trained) is completely overboard and overblown, and more and more rare are the "old school" Sergeants in the field that keep a lid on it. Old School cops were taught that once in a while they had to fight, once in a while they had to take a hit (not a bullet), once in a while they had to go home with a black eye or a bloody nose, all in order that they not kill somebody. Cops today are being taught that they need not assume any of those risks.

I hope this clarifies what I meant.
 
Agree - BB guns can be very dangerous. Think we have all been hit by BB's.

Yes it is different than it use to be . it was Not unusualy to see kids walking down the street with BB guns to go practice or shoot up cans. Kept us out of trouble

Right - Parents are responsible.
While the guns in our house were not locked up . My father could look at the gun case and know if one had moved. We wold have been punished for taking a 22 out of the case without permission.

So are parents abdicating to big brother expecting them to address the issue
 
I think most have missed the real culprit. In 1947 or 1948 the SCOUSA came up with the convolutied idea of seperation of church and state. It took a few years for it to work its way into society, but it did. In 1961 and 1962 God and God's Word were expelled from our schools. From that time on crime has risen, divorce has risen, illieracy has risen, respect for officials (inclding police) has dropped, respect for parents has dropped. Personal responsiblity has dropped.

Teachers used to be concerned about kids talking in class or throwing spit balls or being tardy. Now they are concerned about being raped or murdered. Cops used to be regular guys trying to catch bad guys. Now reasonable cops have to protect themselves first and then the citizenry next.

Respect has to start at the top. Just consider the president the other day. He didn't have enough class to respect the playing of "God save the queen"! And yet he is a college grad.
 
I speak not from speculation. My father was a police officer in a wide-open town in Nevada, then Montana, then a US Marshal. No one can tell me (and no one could tell him) that Winnemucca in 1962 (Prostitution, Gambling, Mafia, etc., etc., etc.,) was less dangerous for a police officer than current East L.A. I was a military policeman, and now am in a position to witness police response to any call that mentions a gun. Such response (not their fault: it is they way they are trained) is completely overboard and overblown, and more and more rare are the "old school" Sergeants in the field that keep a lid on it. Old School cops were taught that once in a while they had to fight, once in a while they had to take a hit (not a bullet), once in a while they had to go home with a black eye or a bloody nose, all in order that they not kill somebody. Cops today are being taught that they need not assume any of those risks.

And let me clarify. I was born when Truman was president. My father was a Chief of Police in a small eastern mill town. The number one priority for him was keeping the peace and protecting innocent citizens, not his personal safety. That's what he always taught me that a police officer's duty was, to serve and protect, not preserve his own skin. He disarmed people that the police now would simply shoot. He broke up many bar fights where one or both participants were armed without ever drawing a weapon.

What we have now is police who are trained as if the streets were a war zone. Anything that becomes a target is to be neutralized. It started with Chief Gates in LA and the invention of the SWAT team. A police officer's job should involve the use of judgement and experience to analyze a situation. Instead, we now have police who are trained to react automatically with the maximum allowable force, no questions asked.
 
In fairness to the police, if there weren't kids out there with real guns shooting each other, then no one would have to be wary of something that looked like a real gun. That goes back to the kids, the family, the culture, yadda yadda.

If someone pulled that Beretta look-a-like on me, I would not hesitate to pull a real one on them.
 
I think most have missed the real culprit. In 1947 or 1948 the SCOUSA came up with the convolutied idea of seperation of church and state. It took a few years for it to work its way into society, but it did. In 1961 and 1962 God and God's Word were expelled from our schools. From that time on crime has risen, divorce has risen, illieracy has risen, respect for officials (inclding police) has dropped, respect for parents has dropped. Personal responsiblity has dropped.

Teachers used to be concerned about kids talking in class or throwing spit balls or being tardy. Now they are concerned about being raped or murdered. Cops used to be regular guys trying to catch bad guys. Now reasonable cops have to protect themselves first and then the citizenry next.

Respect has to start at the top. Just consider the president the other day. He didn't have enough class to respect the playing of "God save the queen"! And yet he is a college grad.

Kinda puzzled with your interpretation of the Constitution. There is in fact a clear Constitutional separation between church and State, as well there should be. If you want a nation where religion and the State are one...move to Iran.
 
Putting myself in a cops shoes if this was pointed at me I would have a hard time taking any other tactic than to draw my own weapon and, if the circumstances dictated, shooting the person who held it. Add in the fact that it would be even harder to discern things at night and I think this is a tragedy waiting to happen.
 
Old School cops were taught that once in a while they had to fight, once in a while they had to take a hit (not a bullet), once in a while they had to go home with a black eye or a bloody nose, all in order that they not kill somebody. Cops today are being taught that they need not assume any of those risks.

My son-in-law is a Douglas Co. deputy sheriff. If he read this I am 99.9% certain he would tell you that you are full of it.
 
BB guns and Pellet guns are GUNS. Kids and adults have used them to commit crimes with, and have threatened people with them to gain the advantage.

If a kid treats a BB gun like a gun, and is taught to respect the thing, and the police, then I don't believe there is a problem. If kids act like hoodlums waving them around and threatening people with them, the result will not be good....

And yes, I'm an older fart, born while Eisenhower was the president and Democrats were also war heroes....and you could get real firearms through the mail (look at a 1960 American Rifleman! I wish the prices were still like that)...

It isn't that life is less valuable now then it was then, it is that respect for our fellow man, common decency and common sense were common virtues, as opposed to now...
 
. No one can tell me (and no one could tell him) that Winnemucca in 1962 (Prostitution, Gambling, Mafia, etc., etc., etc.,) was less dangerous for a police officer than current East L.A. Old School cops were taught that once in a while they had to fight, once in a while they had to take a hit (not a bullet), once in a while they had to go home with a black eye or a bloody nose, all in order that they not kill somebody. Cops today are being taught that they need not assume any of those risks.

I hope this clarifies what I meant.

Having lived in Winnemucca for 12 years I can and will tell you that you are definitely full of it if you expect anyone to believe that podunk town is anywhere near as dangerous as East L.A ( I assume you mean Compton?). In Winny we could walk around the town at 2am and never have any problems. When I was working in Temecula Ca. there was no way in heck you'd talk me into walking alone in Compton at night even if I was armed. You have a seriously convoluted theory about the advancement in LE training. Times change, and the trainers have to try and stay one step ahead of the times.
 
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