Some of those airsoft guns are essentially replicas of real/regular guns.
I’m not sure what the laws are on that, but it never quite made sense to me. I guess if you saw a kid walking around with an orange-tipped gun, it would be safe to assume it’s fake. But whenever the topic comes up, my first thought is ‘I’ll just make sure to paint the end of my gun orange before the next time I rob a store’.
Come to think of it, it would make more sense for it to be illegal to give a real gun an orange tip rather than requiring fake guns to have one.
In the United States, federal law and regulations indicate that all toy guns transported or imported into the country must have a 6mm-wide blaze orange tip or a blaze orange stripe 1-inch (2.54 centimeters) thick on both sides of the barrel. However, this is not required by federal law for airsoft and paintball. Part 272 of Title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations on foreign commerce and trade (15 CFR 272) states that “no person shall manufacture, enter into commerce, ship, transport, or receive any toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm” without approved markings; these may include an orange tip, orange barrel plug, brightly colored (safety orange) exterior of the whole toy, or transparent construction.
New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and parts of Michigan have completely banned airsoft guns.[citation needed]. In New York City, as of 2003, the sale of replica toy guns was punishable with one year’s jail term plus $1,000. Chicago goes even further with their mandates.[21] It is considered a crime to wield a look-alike or replica gun (e.g., toy gun, airsoft gun) in public. If a toy gun or replica gun is used to commit a crime in Chicago, then that person is treated as though they had actually used a real firearm.[citation needed] However, state laws relating to the regulation of toy, look-alike, or imitation firearms, or purporting to ban the sale or manufacture of bb guns, paintball guns, or airsoft guns are preempted by federal law.[22]
Note: I didn’t dig past this quote, so I’m not sure if airsoft guns don’t need the orange tip or aren’t allowed to have them. That is, I don’t know if these laws don’t include airsoft guns or specifically exclude them. They’re a lot closer to real guns then ones that shoot nerf darts or water.
Washington, for the record, is an open-carry state. Had the airsoft guns been real the youths would have been fully within their rights to be carrying them as long as they weren’t using them to commit some other crime.
Lots of cognitive dissonance with the people who want to be allowed to have as many guns with them anywhere all the time, but are also paranoid of everyone and convinced that they’re going to have to be the “good guy with a gun” and heroically thwart the other people exercising that same right.
To be fair, clearly he owned a Travon Martin hoodie and was in possession of a Tamir Rice style deadly weapon. What more evidence does one need to see that this was a clearly justified murderkilling discharge of a firearm?
/bitter sarcasm
They don’t usually set foot in Seattle proper - they just stay in Renton and Bellevue and Issaquah and let KOMO tell them the city is still a smoldering pile of rubble after the police were defunded and CHOP burned everything to the ground.
KOMO = The local Sinclair-owned TV station which has spent most of the last decade hyping up urban crime and talking about how Seattle is “dying” because of homeless people
CHOP = Capital Hill Organized Protest, when some BLM guys took over a park for a few weeks in summer 2020 and Fox News lost its shit
A very, very quick look tells me in WA you have to be 21 to open carry. The kid was 17. From what I can tell, the only time someone under 18, in WA, can even handle a gun is under a very specific set of circumstances. I’m not entirely sure bringing it to the store for repairs would even be covered here. I think if the store had a range, that would be a loophole. RCW 9.41.042: Children—Permissible firearm possession.
And to be clear, this is for real guns, I’m not sure how this applies to replica and/or airsoft guns.
I’ve been meaning to start an RNC-Milwaukee thread and this was one of the things I wanted to address. TPTB in Milwaukee suggested a ban on firearms. One of the reasons it didn’t go through is because they’re worried that banning guns from the secure zone will just encourage the 2A crowd to show up and cause a scene.
However, buckets full of human waste are still banned.
Spiker made the motion to deny Bauman’s proposed gun prohibition, saying it was clear that the measure would violate a state law that the city needed to follow. He also cited concerns that passing the ordinance would compel people who want to challenge the law to come to the RNC armed.
It’s good thing I said that in my post.
The next line after the part you quoted is that disclaimer.
And the reason it came up, and the reason I made that disclaimer, is because I was replying to Smapti’s post about IF it had been a real gun. My point was that IF it had been a real gun, he still wouldn’t have been allowed to carry it because he was a minor.
Why? What difference does it make if I can tell how old someone in a picture is? Whether or not his shooting would be justified, so far as I know, wouldn’t have anything to do with his age. I don’t think “I thought he was 15” vs “I thought he was 25” will change the outcome of the case.
