![\"A](\"http:\/\/198.154.244.69\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/SSUSA-me-and-my-buddy-002.jpg\")
<\/a>A couple of Crosman airsoft pistols showing the orange indicator tip.<\/p><\/div>\n
What was originally reported to be a pellet gun turned out to be an airsoft pistol. Airsoft rifles and pistols are replicas of firearms that shoot 6 mm plastic BBs. Airsoft guns are considered to be non-lethal and, for the most part, non-injurious (eye protection is required and the only other airsoft injury that I have heard of is a chipped tooth), and they are used for target shooting, scenario play, firearms practice, and force-on-force training by various government agencies. By law, all airsoft pistols and rifles sold in the United States are equipped with an orange safety tip that indicates that they are not actual firearms. A Wikipedia report on the shooting says that the orange safety tip on Rice\u2019s airsoft pistol was \u201cremoved.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a lamentable situation; any way you play it, it is a tragedy for everyone involved: for Tamir Rice, his family, and for the officers involved in the shooting.<\/p>\n
My daughter, a grown woman with a career of her own, said emphatically, \u201cHe (meaning Tamir Rice) shouldn\u2019t be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
I spoke with a friend who is a gun-carrying sworn officer to find out some of the basics of police training. Police are trained to regard any situation with a firearm as serious and to regard any report of a weapon as a real weapon until proven otherwise. They are also trained to consider \u201ccontext.\u201d A person with a gun in the woods may have a reason to be there (he\u2019s hunting), whereas a person with a gun outside a grocery store or on a playground is a far different situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerception is incredibly important,\u201d my friend said. \u201cIf you point an airsoft gun out a window and someone sees it and thinks it is a real gun, people are going to treat you like it is a real gun. It doesn\u2019t matter what you intended, what matters is what the other person perceives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, police are trained to address the threat \u2013 that\u2019s their job. If someone reports \u201ca person with a gun,\u201d the police have to deal with it. To do otherwise, is to risk that the \u201cperson with a gun\u201d may kill or injure others.<\/p>\n
If the police perceive that they are under threat of deadly physical force \u2013 for example, by a person reaching for a gun or pointing a gun at them \u2013 they are trained to respond to the threat of deadly physical force with deadly physical force to defend themselves or someone else. Further, they are trained to shoot until the threat is neutralized. A kid who is taking an airsoft gun to a place where it may be perceived as a real weapon is putting himself in harm\u2019s way, and you can\u2019t hit reset afterwards and play the game again.<\/p>\n
So what does that mean for the readers of this blog? First, don\u2019t walk around in public areas with an airsoft gun, air rifle or air pistol. Don\u2019t show it and don\u2019t point it at people you don\u2019t know. Keep it on private property (or other areas where it is proper to have it, like a gun range), and don\u2019t leave the property with it. If traveling in a car, make sure that it can\u2019t be seen. And don\u2019t remove, cover, paint or tape over the orange safety tip on airsoft pistols and rifles; it could make a misunderstanding over whether an airsoft \u201cweapon\u201d is real even more dangerous.<\/p>\n
If you are a parent, drill these principles into your kid\u2019s heads. Make sure that they understand that\u2019s it is not what they intend, but what others perceive, that can make the difference between fun and tragedy in handling airsoft guns and pellet and BB guns.<\/p>\n
Further, if you will be shooting on your property, and there is the possibility that the neighbor may see \u201ca person with a gun,\u201d talk to them ahead of time, and make sure they understand what you are doing, and that you are concerned for everyone\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.<\/p>\n
–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jock Elliott<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was my wife who interrupted my train of thought. \u201cDid you see this thing on the news? A boy got shot in Cleveland, and they say he had a pellet gun.\u201d \u201cOh boy,\u201d I thought. \u201cThis sucks.\u201d The facts of the case, as reported by the Associated Press on Nov. 26, appear to be…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,20,211,192,119],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3132"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3137,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions\/3137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}