Cops can't tell the real guns from the 'replicas'

Greg Bean

Coda

Instead of messing around with things like keeping trans fats away from our french fries, I have a suggestion for our local representatives in the state Assembly that might save some young lives now.

Last week, cops in Holmdel caught a group of local boys with a replica handgun they planned to take on a camping trip with them. And according to a story in Greater Media's Independent, as the police officer was taking that young lad to the pokey, he spotted two more teens on the street with replica weapons.

All of the boys were eventually charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, but they're lucky that's all that happened. They could have wound up dead.

These so-called replica guns are so realistic that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real thing, and that has led to deadly encounters all across the country between law enforcement officials and the people who carry these fake weapons.

Can you spot the fake?

To see just how badly wrong things can go for a young person carrying or brandishing one of these replica firearms, all you have to do is type the phrase "replica toy gun shooting by police" into your favorite search engine. Within seconds, the search will come up with dozens of incidents that ended in bloodshed.

For example, take the case of a 15-year-old from Sterling Heights, Mich., who was shot to death by police Oct. 12 after he was involved in a traffic accident and came out of his vehicle with a replica handgun in his hand. At that moment, according to the Detroit News, the officers opened fire because they feared for their safety.

"The officers had no way of knowing it was not real," Sterling Heights Police Lt. Michael Reese said after the shooting.

Or the case of Preston Lee Freeman, an 18-year-old who was hit by four bullets out of 20 fired at him by police in Duluth, Minn., after an intoxicated Freeman pointed a replica pistol at them.

Or the case of Douglas Damon, a transient who was shot to death by police in Vancouver, B.C., Oct. 1 after he pointed a replica handgun at officers who were taking him into custody for lurking around a shopping center late at night.

Fact is, there have been hundreds of similar incidents around the country, and while some states, like New York, have passed laws to require that replica weapons be made of brightly colored or transparent plastic to keep them from being mistaken for real, those laws haven't done much good so far. In fact, information from a police policy studies council claims that 40 percent of guns seized by some police departments after crimes and up to 60 percent of guns used in criminal activities are fake replicas.

It's a common misconception that these realistic-looking weapons are only available from certain less-than-reputable sites on the Internet. In truth, they're likely available at your local discount or sporting goods store.

For example, a recent newspaper advertising circular for Sports Authority carried in several local papers included a 30-percent-off ad for the entire stock of Soft Air pellet guns. Although the Soft Air replica handgun in the ad has a small piece of red plastic at the end of the barrel, it is otherwise indistinguishable from the 9mm Beretta automatic carried by many military and police officers. And if you're not interested in the Beretta, there's a rifle that's the spitting image of the ubiquitous AK-47.

According to an article by the BBC News, retailers say these Soft Air guns account for the vast majority of replicas on the market.

Included with this column are photographs by Chris Kelly of a replica 9mm Beretta and a real Beretta automatic. The weapons are the same size and color, and nearly identical in detail, especially if someone takes the time to remove the piece of plastic from the barrel of the fake.

Could you tell them apart at a glance? I couldn't, and I've been around firearms for my entire life. (Hint: The photo on top is of a real Beretta 9mm. The photo on the bottom is the "replica." Or maybe it's the other way around. No, the one on top is real.)

This is a potentially deadly situation that needs to be addressed before there are needless deaths here in New Jersey. It's time our representatives in Trenton take on the challenge of keeping these realistic-looking fake weapons out of the hands of children, and crazy grown-ups.

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File this one under Mixed Messages.

On Tuesday, Oct. 31, the top-of-the-page headline in the Ocean County Observer screamed "Brick deemed safest city in U.S.," followed by the subhead, "Rankings are based on a rate for six basic crime categories."

That's nice, but right under that was another story headlined "More charges for Brick woman accused of hacking up husband."

(?)

Either she hacked him up after the guys taking the crime survey went home, or husband-hacking isn't one of the six basic crime categories. Either way, the juxtaposition of those headlines was pretty weird.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.