Gun safety: Demonstrate, discuss safe habits with children

The story of a 15-year-old old boy shot to death by police after he report­edly pointed a pel­let gun at offi­cers has been in the head­lines ever since the tragic event occurred. Unfor­tu­nately, this is not the first time for such a story.

There have been too many inci­dents of some­one being shot and killed when a toy or replica gun has been mis­taken for a real gun. Police offi­cers from all over have killed peo­ple who have bran­dished toy or replica guns while com­mit­ting crimes or want­ing to die by what is com­monly known as “sui­cide by cop.” There have been oth­ers who have been killed with real guns by some­one who thought the gun was a toy or a replica. One such tragedy occurred in Cal­i­for­nia in 1991 when a grand­fa­ther, play­ing with his grand­son, mis­took a real gun for a toy and shot and killed the three-year-old.

Some peo­ple want to blame law enforce­ment for over­re­act­ing or the man­u­fac­tur­ers of toy and replica guns for these tragedies. Law enforce­ment offi­cers are usu­ally respond­ing to reports of some­one with a gun. The per­son mak­ing the report can not always tell if the gun is real or a toy when they make the call to police, but peo­ple expect respond­ing offi­cers to be able to make the deter­mi­na­tion even under an extremely stress­ful sit­u­a­tion. Offi­cers are trained to give com­mands, when­ever pos­si­ble, to get the per­son to put the gun down and out of reach. If the per­son does not com­ply, offi­cers have to make a split sec­ond deci­sion to pro­tect their lives and the lives of others.

Toy and replica gun man­u­fac­tur­ers are required to put an orange-colored mark­ing on the guns to help dis­tin­guish the toys from real guns. Unfor­tu­nately, there are peo­ple who will use spray paint to cover the orange mark­ing to make the gun look more real or will paint an orange mark­ing on a real gun to make it resem­ble a toy. Sta­tis­tics from the U.S Depart­ment of Jus­tice show, dur­ing a four-year period, law enforce­ment agen­cies con­fis­cated 31, 650 toy and replica guns, altered to look more like real guns, used dur­ing the com­mis­sion of crimes.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers are required to place warn­ings on pack­ag­ing of toys and replica guns as well. The buyer is warned that alter­ing the color or mark­ings to make the prod­uct look more real is dan­ger­ous and may be mis­taken for a real firearm by law enforce­ment. The buyer is also warned that pos­sess­ing the prod­uct on the grounds or premises of any school or col­lege may be a crime. In Ohio, it is a crime to be in pos­ses­sion of any item that repli­cates a firearm, while on school grounds or school premises.

Par­ents need to talk to chil­dren about gun safety and demon­strate good gun safety habits. All guns should be used under adult super­vi­sion only and should be put away in locked cab­i­nets when not being used, mak­ing sure the toy guns are in a sep­a­rate cab­i­net from the real guns. Empha­size that all guns are dan­ger­ous and restrict access to guns to help keep our kids safe.

Keep­ing Our Kids Safe is brought to you by the Delaware Police Depart­ment and School Resource Offi­cer Rod Glazer.

Posted by Rod Glazer on Feb 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.