Sunday, June 23, 2024

Toy Guns Misidentified

I am writing a magazine article about toy gun control laws of the 19th century. Yes some cities passed laws banning sale of cap guns to people under a certain age, typically 14 or 15. They also banned sale of real guns to children.   

Some years back, maybe in the 1970s there were some incidents where police officers mistook kids playing with toy guns and thought they were under fire with horrendous results.  This is part of why all toy guns sold in the U.S. have to have orange tips.  if you sn pioint me to articles about such incidents i would be grateful.  I think the 19th century toy gun control laws may have had the same goal.


2 comments:

  1. I had to prove I was over 18 to buy a BB gun at WalMart. (I was replacing my ancient Daisy Powerline 880 crow medicine. It's so much lighter with all the parts replaced with plastic.)

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  2. This may not be exactly what you are looking for but Tamir Rice was shot in 2014 after a police officer mistook a toy gun (without an orange tip) for real. See here .

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