Safety measures should be taken with toy guns, law enforcement says - FOX13 Memphis
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — FOX13 spoke to law enforcement and parents about the safety precautions that need to be taken even when children are playing with toy guns.
An 8-year-old girl died after being shot in the head over the weekend in Marion, Arkansas. Marion Police said the shooting happened when a group of people showed up with splatter guns. They are toy guns that shoot a water gel ball but can sometimes look all too real.
Law enforcement that we talked to told us that even if a gun you give your child is a toy gun, your child needs to be educated about it.
”I think one of the main concerns is that people think putting a toy gun out with their kids to play is that they fail to educate their kids that we live in a society where everybody looks at these things at face value. People see a gun, and they think gun, they don’t think toy,” Justin Smith, Chief Deputy with the DeSoto County Sheriff Department, said.
Smith told FOX13 that with toy guns looking so real today, people look at them and think they are the real thing.
”If you run into somebody who does not know you are playing with a toy gun, it is a very good idea to just not point that gun at somebody because they can take that as a threat,” Smith said.
Many of the splatter guns we found online looked real and didn’t have an orange tip, which is one of the options toymakers are required to use under federal law.
Darrel Gipson said he didn’t understand how a toy gun could be made to look so authentic.
”Just unfortunate. It’s one of those things now you got toy guns looking like a real gun,” Gipson said.
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