Senseless tragedies continue despite laws to restrict toy guns
BY JOHN WOOLFOLK
Mercury News
Fake guns drew police fire and left two California men dead in the past week despite a rash of toy-weapons restrictions that followed similar tragedies involving children in the 1980s and 1990s.
But whether recent shootings in Mountain View and Los Angeles will bring new laws is uncertain. Many police and public officials seem resigned to an unfortunate reality of policy-making: You can't legislate common sense.
``It's just not a reasonable thing to do to wave anything that looks like a firearm at someone who's armed,'' said San Jose police Sgt. Larry Weir, the department's weapons expert and firearms supervisor. ``It gets down to common sense. . . . There have always been stupid acts that occur.
``It's not the things that are available. It's the decisions being made by people.''
A decade or so ago, police and lawmakers crusaded for crackdowns on realistic toy guns. What followed was a host of local, state and federal laws requiring that cap guns and squirt guns be brightly colored, and other laws banning toys that look like the real thing.
The laws followed a number of highly publicized cases in which police shot and killed children who had pointed plastic guns at them.
It's impossible to say whether the recent laws have made a dent. The FBI and Justice Department do not keep track of shootings involving toy or fake guns. Manufacturers don't, either.
Several ways to simulate guns Despite restrictions, collector-oriented replicas are easy to come by, some illegal toy imports get past Customs inspectors and into the country, and for someone determined to flout the laws, it's simple enough to paint or modify a toy gun to make it look real.
San Jose in 1988 passed a law prohibiting sales of realistic toy firearms, with violators subject to a $10,000 fine. The law followed the shooting by San Francisco police of a 13-year-old boy who pointed a plastic gun at them.
The state passed a similar law a year later, increasing penalties for brandishing a fake gun in a threatening manner. Other states and cities also have such laws. New York City's law dates to 1955 and is among the most restrictive, banning black, blue or silver-colored toy guns.
Congress got into the act in 1992 and required that toy guns manufactured here or imported from abroad be made in bright colors.
Many toy stores went even further. The national Toys R Us chain in 1988 pulled realistic guns from its shelves after a police shot and killed a 10-year-old Memphis, Tenn., boy carrying a toy Colt .45.
Despite the flurry of restrictions from lawmakers and the industry, however, tragedies involving toy and fake guns have continued.
In 1997, Santa Cruz police fatally shot John Calvin Dine, a 41-year-old mentally ill man who pointed a realistic toy gun at them on a downtown street.
In 1998, New York police shot a 16-year-old boy after mistaking his water pistol for a submachine gun.
Most recently, an officer in Los Angeles fatally shot Anthony Dwain Lee early Saturday after police said the 39-year-old actor pulled a replica .357 Magnum pistol at costume party.
Then on Monday, a Mountain View police officer shot and killed Michael Faumui, 32, of East Palo Alto, during a standoff in which they said he pointed a realistic toy gun at officers.
Police say that such cases draw considerable press coverage because they are relatively rare. For example, Los Angeles police have confronted seven people wielding fake firearms in the past two years, wounding several and killing at least one. But the city reported 117 homicides last year and more than 6,600 assaults.
Recent cases involve adults What drove earlier waves of legislation was the fact that young children were being killed when police mistook innocent play for a threat. But more recent cases involve teenagers and adults engaging in menacing behavior, something many observers say there is little they can do to prevent.
``It's not the young children doing this,'' said Diane Cardinale, spokeswoman for the Toy Manufacturers Association. ``Most of these cases are teenagers or adults who should know better than to point a weapon at an officer.''
But others say more could be done to prevent those tragedies. David Roberti, the former Democratic state senator from Los Angeles who wrote California's law, said it's worth looking into.
``I think we've got to get some attention to it because what happened this week is an indication that mistaken possession is starting to get out of hand again,'' Roberti said.
California's law and most others were aimed at keeping realistic toy guns out of the hands of children, allowing exemptions for non-firing antique replicas sought by collectors and props used by television and film studios. It's still illegal to brandish those as though they were real, but not to possess them.
``You could further restrict the availability of replications without hitting areas where they have a legitimate purpose,'' Roberti said. ``It would be pretty hard to have a film if you had a red tip on the gun.''
But some local officials sympathetic to the idea wonder whether the problem is too complex for such a solution.
Santa Cruz City Councilman Michael Hernandez said he gave up on efforts to pass a toy-gun law like San Jose's in his city.
``Is there something missing in the life of whoever grasps that little gun that we can resolve? I don't think there is,'' Hernandez said. ``There's a thing called `suicide by cop.' Are people trying to get themselves killed?''
In addition to legitimate replicas easily available to adults, it's easy to paint a toy gun black, Cardinale said.
Police say there's little they can do but inform people of the high danger of confronting someone with a fake gun.
``What's the reason for having a toy gun?'' asked San Francisco Police Inspector Sherman Ackerson. ``In a lot of ways, having one is more dangerous than having a real one because you're feigning having a real one, and why would you want to do that?''
Ackerson said officers from his department come across toy guns on the streets as a matter of routine.
``A lot of times we'll arrest someone and they'll have a toy gun in their pocket,'' said Ackerson. ``These are usually dopers who can't afford a real gun.''
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Mercury News staff writer Daniel Vasquez contributed to this report. Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3410.
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Skyhawk
BY JOHN WOOLFOLK
Mercury News
Fake guns drew police fire and left two California men dead in the past week despite a rash of toy-weapons restrictions that followed similar tragedies involving children in the 1980s and 1990s.
But whether recent shootings in Mountain View and Los Angeles will bring new laws is uncertain. Many police and public officials seem resigned to an unfortunate reality of policy-making: You can't legislate common sense.
``It's just not a reasonable thing to do to wave anything that looks like a firearm at someone who's armed,'' said San Jose police Sgt. Larry Weir, the department's weapons expert and firearms supervisor. ``It gets down to common sense. . . . There have always been stupid acts that occur.
``It's not the things that are available. It's the decisions being made by people.''
A decade or so ago, police and lawmakers crusaded for crackdowns on realistic toy guns. What followed was a host of local, state and federal laws requiring that cap guns and squirt guns be brightly colored, and other laws banning toys that look like the real thing.
The laws followed a number of highly publicized cases in which police shot and killed children who had pointed plastic guns at them.
It's impossible to say whether the recent laws have made a dent. The FBI and Justice Department do not keep track of shootings involving toy or fake guns. Manufacturers don't, either.
Several ways to simulate guns Despite restrictions, collector-oriented replicas are easy to come by, some illegal toy imports get past Customs inspectors and into the country, and for someone determined to flout the laws, it's simple enough to paint or modify a toy gun to make it look real.
San Jose in 1988 passed a law prohibiting sales of realistic toy firearms, with violators subject to a $10,000 fine. The law followed the shooting by San Francisco police of a 13-year-old boy who pointed a plastic gun at them.
The state passed a similar law a year later, increasing penalties for brandishing a fake gun in a threatening manner. Other states and cities also have such laws. New York City's law dates to 1955 and is among the most restrictive, banning black, blue or silver-colored toy guns.
Congress got into the act in 1992 and required that toy guns manufactured here or imported from abroad be made in bright colors.
Many toy stores went even further. The national Toys R Us chain in 1988 pulled realistic guns from its shelves after a police shot and killed a 10-year-old Memphis, Tenn., boy carrying a toy Colt .45.
Despite the flurry of restrictions from lawmakers and the industry, however, tragedies involving toy and fake guns have continued.
In 1997, Santa Cruz police fatally shot John Calvin Dine, a 41-year-old mentally ill man who pointed a realistic toy gun at them on a downtown street.
In 1998, New York police shot a 16-year-old boy after mistaking his water pistol for a submachine gun.
Most recently, an officer in Los Angeles fatally shot Anthony Dwain Lee early Saturday after police said the 39-year-old actor pulled a replica .357 Magnum pistol at costume party.
Then on Monday, a Mountain View police officer shot and killed Michael Faumui, 32, of East Palo Alto, during a standoff in which they said he pointed a realistic toy gun at officers.
Police say that such cases draw considerable press coverage because they are relatively rare. For example, Los Angeles police have confronted seven people wielding fake firearms in the past two years, wounding several and killing at least one. But the city reported 117 homicides last year and more than 6,600 assaults.
Recent cases involve adults What drove earlier waves of legislation was the fact that young children were being killed when police mistook innocent play for a threat. But more recent cases involve teenagers and adults engaging in menacing behavior, something many observers say there is little they can do to prevent.
``It's not the young children doing this,'' said Diane Cardinale, spokeswoman for the Toy Manufacturers Association. ``Most of these cases are teenagers or adults who should know better than to point a weapon at an officer.''
But others say more could be done to prevent those tragedies. David Roberti, the former Democratic state senator from Los Angeles who wrote California's law, said it's worth looking into.
``I think we've got to get some attention to it because what happened this week is an indication that mistaken possession is starting to get out of hand again,'' Roberti said.
California's law and most others were aimed at keeping realistic toy guns out of the hands of children, allowing exemptions for non-firing antique replicas sought by collectors and props used by television and film studios. It's still illegal to brandish those as though they were real, but not to possess them.
``You could further restrict the availability of replications without hitting areas where they have a legitimate purpose,'' Roberti said. ``It would be pretty hard to have a film if you had a red tip on the gun.''
But some local officials sympathetic to the idea wonder whether the problem is too complex for such a solution.
Santa Cruz City Councilman Michael Hernandez said he gave up on efforts to pass a toy-gun law like San Jose's in his city.
``Is there something missing in the life of whoever grasps that little gun that we can resolve? I don't think there is,'' Hernandez said. ``There's a thing called `suicide by cop.' Are people trying to get themselves killed?''
In addition to legitimate replicas easily available to adults, it's easy to paint a toy gun black, Cardinale said.
Police say there's little they can do but inform people of the high danger of confronting someone with a fake gun.
``What's the reason for having a toy gun?'' asked San Francisco Police Inspector Sherman Ackerson. ``In a lot of ways, having one is more dangerous than having a real one because you're feigning having a real one, and why would you want to do that?''
Ackerson said officers from his department come across toy guns on the streets as a matter of routine.
``A lot of times we'll arrest someone and they'll have a toy gun in their pocket,'' said Ackerson. ``These are usually dopers who can't afford a real gun.''
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury News staff writer Daniel Vasquez contributed to this report. Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3410.
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Skyhawk