Fake Guns, Real Crimes

The most recent example in the news of a fake gun being taken as real came when police in Ohio shot and killed a person who turned out to be a 13-year-old boy named Tyree King after he pulled a firearm out of his waistband that looked real. According to Columbus, Ohio, news reports, police were responding to a report of an armed robbery when they saw the boy. The gun looked “practically identical,” to the weapon that police use, according to Associated Press reports about the shooting.

Police across the board are reporting that they are seeing more people with replica handguns. These guns often look like the real thing but are cheaper and easier to get. In Edmonton, Canada, police said imitation guns were involved in 1,598 incidents in 2015 — up 38 percent from a year earlier. Arlington, Texas police reported an increase in replica guns used in crime, including one case in which a woman was carjacked by a man with an air gun that looked like a pistol. Another case in the same town involved a teen who threatened an officer with a gun that was not real. In that case, the officer was able to get the gun away from the teen and subdue him without further incident.

The federal government, however, does not track when replica guns are used in crimes. This isn’t the first time that replica guns have made headlines. In the late 1980s, there was a series of shootings involving police officers shooting suspects carrying look-alike guns. At that time, Congress authorized a study on the issue, finding that between 1985 and 1989, thousands of crimes were reported that involved guns that were not real.

More recently, research conducted by the Associated Press discovered at least 25 deaths over the last 20 years at the hands of police who mistook replica guns for real guns. Police say that in the heat of the moment, it can be nearly impossible to tell an imitation gun from a “real” firearm. If you’re the victim of a crime and someone brandishes a gun at you, or you’re carrying concealed and get involved in a show-of-force situation, it’s not likely that anyone is going to stop and ask, “Hey, is that a real gun?” This situation adds to danger for everyone. Federal law requires imitation guns to have orange plugs in the barrel to make it immediately visually apparent that these are not real guns. However, these plastic pieces are easily removed.

At least 12 states along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have laws restricting the sale or use of imitation firearms. At the city level, individual townships can also restrict the sale or use of lookalike guns.

Image courtesy of abcnews.go.com.