No

by John_234

Created on: June 26, 2011

SB 798, or California Senate Bill 798 is a bill that was proposed by the Assembly Public Safety Committee with the purpose of making airsoft guns less dangerous to children. It was defeated with a 5:2 vote on June 22nd, but a second meeting to decide the eventual fate of the bill is planned. Basically, the bill would mandate that all airsoft guns and .177 BB guns would have to be colored in bright, neon shades to assist identification by police officers. Hypothetically.

We'll take a step back and see just how convincing airsoft guns are. On one end of the spectrum, Inokatsu offers Japanese airsoft replicas with astounding detail to realism, like their upcoming 1911 pistol and their well-known M4, Marushin has a line of shell ejecting pistols and TOP offers a rifle equivalent. More affordable replicas like KJW, WE tech and KWA are painted and operated identically to normal firearms... in short, airsoft replicas are very close outwardly to real firearms - mistaking one for a real gun is a definite concern.

The incident that triggered the bill happened in December of last year, where an LAPD officer fired in defense and paralyzed a thirteen year old teenager who had taken a replica Beretta pistol outside at night. As it was dark enough that the officer had to use a flashlight, he was not able to clearly see the orange tip and believed it was a real weapon. Making the entire weapon brightly colored or clear would have avoided such tragedies happening over the years.

This sounds like a logical progession of events, but the problem is if this will actual solve the issue in the first place. The issue covers 6mm airsoft guns and .177 pellet guns. Both typically copy real guns as closely as possible and come with orange tips about an inch in length to distinguish them from toys. As seen, this isn't very effective. But neon or clear guns will likely do even less. Most children or young adults will paint, tape or otherwise dress up a clear or colorful gun to bring it to a realistic black as soon as they get it. Even when this is a federal crime, there's no real way to stop it - how could a police officer check if someone's airsoft gun is properly colored if they're not items normally carried about? To go further to investigate would be a violation of the constitutional rights against search and seizure. This whole issue is generally avoided with orange tips, because children will sometimes leave the tip on as it doesn't totally ruin the appearance of the replica.

So, ignoring that, if people didn't alter their guns after buying them, if guns weren't sold illegally, if everyone went along with such legislation... what would really be the effect? Probably more deaths, both cops and civilians. Previous to the orange tip law, no real guns were seen with orange tips as there was nobody to even think of doing so. After this law was initiated, legitimate owners painted their hobby firearms to mock the law, and criminals took an even darker route - paint their guns with orange tips so that a police officer would have to hesistate and decide if the gun was the genuine article. However, as the officer would not always see the orange tip, this wasn't generally an issue.

But imagine the entire gun having to be painted - suddenly, a cop has to tell if he's starting at a somewhat blocky nerf gun, or a painted firearm. A cop would not be able to fire in defense of the citizen in good conscience, as he could be shooting someone with a simple replica, or a deadly weapon. Things would become very kill or be killed. The likely outcome is suddenly paranoid cops shooting innocent children who had a gun colored according to law, or cops being gunned down because a criminal abused the law to their advantage. Is either what we're trying to do? There's already controversy over guns being painted in general.

Another chilling facet: Paintball guns are not affected in any way. While paintball's colorful nature would probably render this a moot issue, those who actually paintball may know that in the past five years, the sport has been making a large push back towards "woodsball" (paintball in the woods with camo and squad tactics) and "milsim" (military-simulation ) and gear has changed accordingly. The popular Tippman A-5 is based off of the widely used Heckler & Koch MP5K, and without hopper or air tank, looks exceedingly like a real gun. The BT paintball made it's revenue off a line of very realistic markers. Spyder, one of the big "speedball" manufactures has made their own MR4 marker as a reaction to this change. Entire companies in paintball exist for milsim: Real Action Paintball and Umarex both make markers designed to look exactly like firearms, Special Ops Paintball offers simple modifications to make paintguns look like everything from rifles to light machine guns. The Tippman Tiberius pistols are designed to replicate even the function of a semi automatic pistol... Airsoft isn't the only source of replica firearm troubles, so 798 isn't even covering the entirety of the issue to begin with - some have even argued that political motivations drove this avoidance of a sport even more prolific than airsoft. What's the point of enacting a half-effective law?

Another unexpected consequence of this law is the predicted impact in sales. California is undoubtedly the airsoft capital of the United States; airsoft is one of the few industries actually based out of California, and it generates millions. Evike.com, AirsoftExtreme, Airsoft Gi, Steelhawk Airsoft, AirSplat, the largest stores amongst potential hundreds are all based in this state. The United States Airsoft Expo is held in California year to year. If you type "California Airsoft Forum" into Google you will get twelve million results. Businesses would be driven out of the state if every gun had to be painted or made clear.

How do we know this? Similar has been tried before in the field of firearms. AB 962 was an earlier bill attempting to regulate the mail-order and online sale of ammunition - it ended disastrously when retailers opted to cease selling to California entirely, with the extreme business strain caused by having to modify products to sell to one state out of fifty. The bill was shot down in short order. This was for registration and paperwork. If airsoft manufactures had to purchase vast quantities of paint with toxic materials fees, purchase additional painting machines and hire workers to alter existing stocks, or even invest in a new source of plastic molding to produce more expensive clear models, how would anybody expect these business to not simply leave and relocate where airsoft is more welcomed? If this industry collapsed, there's no guarantee that paintball, which poses similar issues, would not be chased out of California either. That's both an economic and sports nightmare.

There's many flaws to SB 798. But this article is useless if it doesn't offer an alternative. For that, we need to look at the common points in these incidents. They happen at night - visual appearance alone isn't going to solve much. They happen mostly with teenagers with no criminal connections - another Google search will show this true. So what do we realize? The death toll isn't cops or criminals - yet. So far, it's young children and teenagers.

Most people may not realize that airsoft guns are basically treated as firearms. With the exception of a FFL (Federal Firearms Dealer) license and paperwork involved for online orders, you must be over eighteen, still sign paperwork, and you cannot take an airsoft gun out to public. That means every thirteen year old with an airsoft gun is basically acquiring them through their parents. The parents already control if these kids can get their hands on airsoft guns or not - what needs to be done now is to instill the common-sense ideas that they shouldn't be waved around in public where they can cause harm. Real guns have very simple rules applied to them - use them at the range, sporting field, or in justified defense. Airsoft should be no different (defense aside.) Airsoft fields dot the country, paintball fields have airsoft days. Some sheriff departments will even give permission for airsoft groups to hold games on public parks given prior notice and the correct precautions. Backyard plinking is expected, but simple plastic pellet-firing replicas shouldn't cause death so trivially.

The law probably won't help us, but that doesn't mean the issue is unsolvable. Easily solvable, at that. The presented solution above probably isn't the best, or we'd all know it to be true - but hopefully the information presented in this article will help find that ideal solution.

Learn more about this author, John_234.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.