Real or Not Real?

 "Real or Not Real?"

Real or Not Real?

         For the Fan's of the Hunger Games, this sounds like a quote of Peta Malark but in reality, this is a question that is all too often asked by law enforcement. 

        There not a single week that goes by that there isn't a story in the news about a crime that has been committed, a Suicide by Cop or a fatal or near fatal encounter with someone that was armed with nothing more than a Airsoft Replica! So this begs the question,

How do we, (Society & Government) Deal with the issue?

First my thoughts:  

Real or Not Real?

        Having been raised by a former police officer, I was always taught the basics of firearms including things like "Don't point a gun at anything that you don't plan to kill AND always treat a firearm as if it is loaded." Over the years I have drawn down on people and had to make the choice as to whether to shoot or not and it is never an easy choice. Recently the movie "American Sniper" was released and it had a scene that caused but discussion in which he had to possibly shoot a child. Our police there should NEVER have to be faced with making that split second decision of is it "Real or Not Real."
- Padre'

From our buddy Mr. Thumpy Covey, of Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft comes this very timely story out of Provo Utah - Officers trained to respond the same when firearm or airsoft gun is pointed at them" The bottom line of that story is that officers are trained to handle any weapon that is pointed at them as a real threat! Does this justify now shooting any little kid who points a water gun at the officer? I don't believe so because there also needs to be a measure of common sense used before resorting to use of deadly force. There needs to be a common (universal?) standard that is applied when faced by a potential deadly weapon.

This brings us to the newest potential threat to our sport, Bill S-213. 

 

Congressional Committee Bill S-213 
        As of January 21st of this year a bill Look-Alike Weapons Safety Act of 2015 was assigned to a congressional committee. This bill was sponsored by the Junior California

Senator, Barbara Boxer who was part of the push by the anti-gun California State Senator. Kevin de Leon to get rid of all the "dangerous" guns and replicas. - We all remember his now famous quote:

“This is a ghost gun. This right here has the ability with a .30-caliber clip to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second. Thirty magazine clip in half a second.”

Real or Not Real?

In an effort to promote public safety and prevent tragedies like those in Cleveland, Spokane, and on and on, this bill, if passed as written, would require that all:

"(A)Toy guns.
(B)Water guns.
(C)Replica non-guns.
(D)Air-soft guns firing nonmetallic projectiles.
(E)Traditional B-B and pellet-firing air guns that expel a projectile through the force of air pressure."

Be colored in "white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink, or bright purple, either individually or as the predominant color in combination with any other color in any pattern"

Finally, if this bill is passed, it would "apply with respect to toy firearms, look-alike firearms, and imitation firearms that are manufactured on or after the date that is 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act."

Real or Not Real?

Final Thoughts:
Padre' - I really don't have a better answer than education. We need to educate our lawmakers, we need to educate retailers, we need to educate parents.  It really won't make a difference with anything short of requiring that all airsoft guns are clear plastic. The "fake look"  will just be duplicated by criminals. While the orange tips have been a "standard" by which to identify a replica vs. the "Real Deal," there was a case just recently in Los Angelas where police confiscated two AK-47's (Real Steel) that had blaze orange flash hiders. There is also a proliferation of pistols, shotguns and rifles that available Cerakoted in any color that you want!!!! So color will not be an effective method of regulating or identifying. I for one would not want to go out to a National MilSim such as Copperhead or Road to Rostov rocking a bright orange A&K Masada! Below this are great thoughts of a much younger and wiser writer on The Warrior Blog, than I - Airsoft Hasmeen


 Airsoft Hasmeen - "I honestly don't think it would ruin the industry. However I do agree that it would not solve anything. However there is really nothing we can do to change the way the government sees airsoft. They don't care about our community and the people who respect the sport, all they see is the negative things coming from it. The only way we could actually fix it in my opinion would be to ban the sales of airsoft guns in big retail stores like Big 5 and Walmart. They should only be sold in airsoft shops and as the store you need to educate the people buying the gun on how to safely transport it and all that fun stuff. Another thing that would actually help would be to where you couldn't buy an airsoft gun without a license or you have a legit field to vouch for you as a player so that you could be able to purchase an airsoft license."

Real or Not Real?

BTW - Every one of the guns in this post are REAL!!!

 

Padre' out...