What Do Airsoft Guns Look Like

Is It A Existent Gun, Or Is It Airsoft?

Cody Tucker of Washington state helped gloat a friend's 14th birthday with a nine-hour Airsoft battle. Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR hide caption

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Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR

Cody Tucker of Washington state helped gloat a friend'south 14th birthday with a 9-hr Airsoft boxing.

Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR

The camouflaged revelers at the birthday bash. Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR hide caption

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Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR

The camouflaged revelers at the birthday fustigate.

Chana Joffe-Walt for NPR

On a hot afternoon, the concluding day of school, two police officers on patrol in Newman, Calif., got a report from a frantic older woman about a teenager in a motorcar, armed and seemingly brazen. They located the boy in minutes.

In that location he was. A 15-year-old sitting in the driver'due south seat of a vehicle and carelessly pointing what looked to exist a Beretta 96 handgun out the window.

The two law officers approached the car.

"We both drew our service weapons and pointed it at the kid and telling him to drop the weapon. Drib the weapon," one officer said.

Just the teen turned toward the commanding voice, pointing the gun where he looked. During the second it took the officer to ready his finger on the trigger, he spotted a tiny dot of orange on the teen's gun butt. He hesitated, and the kid dropped his weapon.

It was a toy. In fact, information technology'south a toy that seems to be landing in the easily of immature people more than and more.

Airsoft guns are the hottest new type of toy replica guns. They shoot lightweight plastic Bulletin board system, come in models ranging from sniper guns to machine guns, and can toll hundreds of dollars. Their bright orange tips assistance distinguish them from real guns, just the tips are pretty easy to suspension off or paint over. And the Airsoft guns are designed to look as real as possible — so real that police, teachers and parents ofttimes can't tell the difference.

In Arkansas, police shot and killed a 12-year-old boy walking outside his apartment complex with a replica toy gun. Young people have been killed in similar circumstances in at least three other states.

The Airsoft guns are particularly popular amidst teenage boys.

"I think they're cool 'cuz they're guns, and most boys like guns and if they don't they're weird," says Eric Deal of Washington country, who was celebrating his 14th altogether with a nine-hour Airsoft battle with friends in his backyard.

His mom, Rebecca Deal, says she has mixed feelings about the toy guns.

"When my children were little, we had rules. You don't shoot each other. We could shoot monsters, aliens, dinosaurs and robots because they weren't real," she says. "So and so comes Airsoft, and all of those rules were diddled out of the water."

On the other hand, she says, Airsoft helped her normally shy son make friends and get out of the house, away from video games.

Some school districts and cities take already banned replica guns similar Airsoft. And the Newman police section wants to run across a federal ban.

The law chief sums up the issue this way: Young people meet Airsoft toys — they're pretending; they don't realize we are not.

Chana Joffe-Walt reports from member station KPLU.