Airsoft guns, which look so real the police cannot tell they are
not lethal weapons, almost got four teenaged boys into serious
trouble Monday.
Airsoft guns, which look so real the police cannot tell they are not lethal weapons, almost got four teenaged boys into serious trouble Monday.
Morgan Hill police were able to tell the difference but only at the last moment before they were prepared to act against the boys who were seen as threatening a group of children playing nearby, police said.
The weapons, called replicas, are popular with youngsters wanting to play commando, as was the case with the Morgan Hill boys, and are related to the also-popular “paint ball” guns.
In most cases, the commando games are played in out-of-the-way places, not in public parks or on school grounds. There are various levels of organized competition. Some organizers require competitors to be adults.
The teams often spend thousands of dollars purchasing and upgrading AEGs (Automatic Electric Guns) that cost $300 to $500. After-market upgrades can run into the thousands of dollars. They are accurate models of assault rifles and submachine guns, firing fully automatic at 750-900 rounds per minute.
These players strive for military accuracy, often buying the same clothing and gear that soldiers from whatever country/unit/division they are pretending to be wear.
Paintball guns shoot nickle-sized balls filled with various colors of paint, allowing the tracker to mark his prey. The paint is a water-soluble mixture of chalk and water and the cartridges must be non-toxic to wildlife; most are biodegradable.
The Airsoft guns the boys used Monday shoot BB-type pellets designed to raise welts on the skin; the pellets typically do not break the skin or glass.
A BB in the eye is, of course, another story. The BBs must be 6 mm (millimeter) in size or less to be legal.
Both types use carbon dioxide (and occasionally nitrogen) cartridges to propel the balls, though a few work with spring. And they must have the tell-tale orange blaze. It is illegal to remove or paint over the color.
Airsoft guns come in two levels: the inexpensive kind sold on line and at stores like SportMart for $20 and the more serious kind selling for hundreds to thousands of dollars. Both levels look extremely realistic and have all the levers, magazines, hammers, buttons, whistles and bells of real rifles and handguns. Most can take the same scopes, flashlights and lasers made for real guns.
The cheaper kind shoot slower.
Peter Ho, manager of Airsoft Extreme Santa Clara, a store that sells the more expensive, serious variety doesn’t sell guns to minors.
“We sell only to adults,” Ho said, “and if a minor will be using the gun, parents must approve. And we train our customers.”
Ho said the cheap kinds of replica Airsoft guns are considered by Airsoft fans as more dangerous to the user than to others, though his reaction to the Morgan Hill boys’ failure to obey police orders to drop their weapons was typical of the week’s public reaction.
“Those boys need a good beating,” Ho said.
There are legitimate outlets for teenagers who want to play realistically with Airsoft-replica guns, Ho said. Most stores provide supervised, refereed play for minors every weekend. He said to type “Airsoft stores” into a search engine (Google or Yahoo! among others) and find the times and places.
One Airsoft-devoted website tend led with an eye-catching phrase:
“Even law enforcement officers are often unable to distinguish Airsoft from real steel. Never take an Airsoft gun out in public, doing so WILL endanger your life.”
Morgan Hill Police Lt. Joe Sampson, who was on the scene Monday, related a telling story from his past.
“A partner of mine in Southern California nearly shot a guy in the same type of situation,” Sampson said. It was a domestic violence call and Sampson’s partner confronted a man who threatened the officer.
“As both guns came up a yellow pellet fell out (of the replica gun) and he recognized it for what it was,” he said. “Eighty percent of other police officers would have fired.”
Sampson asked, again, that parents who buy these replica guns for their children talk to them about appropriate behavior. Not to do so could prove fatal.
