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When the War Department told Winston Churchill that the Germans had learned to identify fake airplanes from the wooden saw horses holding up the faux wings, Churchill instructed the bases to place the saw horses under the real planes. clickondetroit.com reveals that Baltimore gang bangers are practicing the same sort of psyops by painting orange tips on real guns. They “hope to make the police pause” in a shootout, as the cops wonder whether the teen pointing a pistol at them is just joshing. So…what happens next, then? Do cops stop pausing when they see the orange tip – assuming they do (and why would they, exactly)? Or do they start lobbying for a ban on real-looking guns? One high-profile cop killing by a thug wielding an orange-tipped gun and it’s sayonara Airsoft.

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88 COMMENTS

  1. The lefties will reclassify airsoft guns as firearms subject to regulations equal to the real McCoy.Problem solved as far as they’re concerned.

    Hey, it worked for Britian right?

    • In some places within these here United States, any type of airgun is already considered a firearm …

    • In Jersey they are firearms. Possibly silencers too. Did Cali pass that one anti airsoft law a few years back?

    • ST,

      I live in the UK. I had to hand over my Glock 21 back in 1998. Since then I’ve bought a few airsoft weapons, even since the last batch of regulations (if you want one without lots of bright colour, you need to be a practicing airsoft player; if you don’t mind orange muzzle and receiver you can buy for cash on the spot in the High Street) I know because I picked up an airsoft M1014 a month or two ago; orange muzzle and receiver, but works nicely for a cheap’n’cheerful Chinese copy. If you’ve got your membership sorted (from memory it’s three games in no more than six months at a recognised site to show you’re halfway serious) then you can buy your airsoft weapons as Tokyo Marui intended, no orange paint at all.

      Not wise or sensible to brandish one in public (where a ‘realistic imitation firearm’ will get you a lot of trouble) but no trouble at all to take to and from the old NATO communications bunker under Fort Southwick for a day of energetic, silly but entertaining CQB. Just don’t be too lazy to take them out of your car on Sunday evening, because Murphy guarantees that the one and only time you get stopped for a random vehicle check coming into work (a naval establishment) is the time you’ve got half-a-dozen realistic imitation firearms in the boot… (I got a stern look and a request not to do it again from the guards)

    • Anti-gun statisticians like those at Johns Hopkins already do this to artifically inflate their agenda driven “data”.

    • Lefties declaring this and that – then one day they will declare certain folks “non-persons” and the game will start once again.

    • Airsoft guns are real weapons. Why because they shoot 6mm plastic BB’s and can cause serious injury and even death. I play Airsoft so I know what can happen and how quickly it can happen, these are non lethal training tools but if used inappropriately they can be deadly weapons.

  2. Why don’t they just put up a no fake gun sign so that will ensure every gun is real in that area?

  3. And what about real firearms that come in interesting colors.

    A year or two ago Cheaper Than Dirt was listing a KelTec PF9 that came in a bright yellow frame. Seemed like a dumb idea to me. It absolutely looked like a toy.

  4. Fact is New Jersey and NY city (maybe other locales as well) already treat/see airguns as firearms.

  5. The orange tip thing was always stupid. Know we see it come full circle.

    First of all, I can’t believe how many kids were getting killed by cops before. If a child, an actual child and not some teenage thug, were point what looked like a weapon at me I would make sure it wasn’t a toy before I started shooting. I guess before they were shooting dogs it was children. The fact it happened often enough that we had to legislate toys makes me wonder what kind of warzone mentality cops had around kids.

    Second, from a parenting perspective, you shouldn’t point toy guns at cops. I mean, I would have imparted that lesson even if cops weren’t shooting kids. Despite the many issues of law enforcement, I still know many people on police forces who are good honorable men and women. I want my kids to show respect for the uniform.

    Third, what the hell? Are shootouts with cops in Baltimore so common that street thugs are developing tactics to combat them? The city was pretty bad when I visited last year but I didn’t think it was THAT bad.

    • Third, what the hell? Are shootouts with cops in Baltimore so common that street thugs are developing tactics to combat them?

      Yep. Gun free worker’s paradise, it is.

    • Be a parent and teach your kids the 4 rules, and emphasize that pointing in the direction of ANY human being could result in a Really Bad Outcome for them. Oh wait… the people pointing guns at other people (for the most part) have shitty parents to begin with. I call it Darwinism or Chlorine in the Gene Pool.

    • Unfortunately, the very same people who wouldn’t even DREAM of letting their kids so much as SEE an actual firearm (in person) have no problem buying them cheap Airsoft guns and teaching them jack shit, letting them remove the orange tips and run around a public park or whatever.

    • The youngest person I have ever taken into custody for a violent crime was a young-looking 13 year old. He was also a verified member of a notoriously violent latin gang. The gang was hardcore enough that they had been green-lit by La Eme. The child in question had shot at a rival gang member and hit another child in the process.

      A former partner was shot by a nine year old when we were arresting his father for stabbing the child’s mother. My partner survived, but ended up on disability. My partner thought it was a good idea to reason with the kid, as he wasn’t sure if the gun was real or not. He also thought the kid wouldn’t shoot if the gun was real. You may think its cruel, but I would have turned that kid’s head into a canoe.

      Bullets cause damage regardless of the age of the person sending them downrange.

      If you think a person should wait to get shot because the assailant is a child, you are naive and inexperienced.

      I suspect your experience with shooting is limited to the range and Call of Duty.

      • I agree but the people you are trying to help understand don’t want to hear it, they think you should be shot first before you do anything and even then you are probably wrong. It sucks to have to shoot anyone especially a child but stop blaming everyone else.

  6. Anyone that points any type of gun at anybody should get return fire.
    Airsoft guns aren’t that much cheaper for a good replica of the real thing so I don’t see this having much affect on the market.

    • Pointing a gun a cop is a sure way to draw fire. Orange, blue, red or green tip nothwithstanding.

      Im not saying there isn’t plenty of room for judgment calls, but pointing a gun at someone that is in a position to shoot back is an incredibly foolish idea for anyone that doesn’t have a death wish.

      I assume we are not talking about actual children here, as opposed to the17 year old homeboys the media loves to portray as ‘children’ .

  8. Lets add more laws because gang bangers always obey the law right.

    Also if they make it just as hard to airsoft gun as real guns we may as well just buy the real stuff.

  9. I don’t buy it. Real gang members would know the cops won’t hesitate to shoot them if they have guns with orange tips. Or bottles of soda, or wallets, or cell phones, or if they just ran away in hopes of not being beaten.

    • +1, An orange tip might deter a normal citizen who could face consequences, but police officers don’t, which makes this story the equivalent of bird cage liner.

      • Precisely! First this is pure yellow journalism. Just because it’s been done doesn’t mean it’s a ‘thing’.
        Second, the very concept that gang bangers are developing tactics to assist in shoot outs with the police in some organized fashion is pure fantasy. Point in fact, bangers don’t do anything in an organized fashion. It’s as haphazard and ad hoc as human activity gets.
        Third, as has been pointed out, the body language and gestures used in pointing a gun are enough to draw fire regardless of what might be in your hands. There is actually nothing wrong with this; the movements for firing a pistol are so foreign to almost any other activity that anyone mimicking such motions is certainly cause for immediate concern. If that person is oriented on you and also holding something that could be a gun, who doesn’t immediately stop said activity and or drop the object when ordered to do so, that person rightly draws fire. Call it Darwinism, but if you don’t intend to get into a gun fight but won’t stop mimicking the motions of bringing a gun to bear on an obviously armed and concerned person getting shot is just the natural outcome. The world is a better place without someone that ridiculously stupid.

        The problem is young children who don’t have the wherewithal to understand the situation they create and the potential consequences. I don’t think I’d fire on a child under the age of 10 in any circumstances, even if they really were threatening me with a loaded gun. That’s a situation in which I’m more willing to die than to kill. However, as someone above said, it’s pretty poor parenting to not teach a child not to point guns, toy or real, at adults in a threatening manner. Perhaps some kids ought not have toy guns if this rule can’t be obeyed.

        As for the gang bangers, it’s all about context. Three teens in a yard shooting apparently silent pistols at one another are children playing with toys. A teen pointing a gun shaped object at a police officer during an interaction with that officer is either preparing to shoot the officer, attempting to intimidate the officer, or attempting suicide by cop. The correct response for the officer in all three cases is to shoot the teen. You can’t reason with or provide therapy to someone who poses an immediate lethal threat.

        • For me, I suspect (never know until it happens) a child appearing to be under 10 would get a free shot, but if I understand the gun is real and the kid is trying to kill me, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

    • Yeah, I was going to say that orange tips don’t stop them any more than glowing cell phone screens or rectangular wallet shapes stop them from shooting you and claiming you might have pulled a gun.

      One has to wonder how much farther they can go before we are justified in shooting them on contact if we have a reasonable fear that they will ask us for ID then shoot us when we pull a wallet (or shoot us for refusing to pull our wallet, I mean failing to comply with orders, catch-22).

  10. I don’t know. If they’re that worried about not getting shot, maybe they should, and this is a novel idea, STOP BREAKING THE $&%*($# LAW?!

  11. As someone who lives in Baltimore, it’s amazing and unsurprising at the same time that OUR OWN LOCAL F-ING MEDIA hasn’t reported on this.

    • They don’t report anything. They just push FAR left wing agenda. I won’t watch the local news anymore.

  13. Clearly, backround checks on all orange paint purchases and a ban on all paint containers over 1/10oz will slow the bloodshed of all urban youths looking to turn their life around. But, required micro-texturing of gun muzzles to resist paint adhesion will solve this problem completely and should be mandated by law as soon as the technology is available.

  14. Old news. Thugs have tried this before in several areas and discovered that Law Enforcement will always err on the side of “officer safety” when a full grown, full sized, thug-type has -anything- that even remotely resembles a gun in their hands.

    Yeah if you were “kid-sized” it might make an officer pause, otherwise not so much.

    • I think you’re onto something. This might actually impart a tactical advantage if you’re sub 4’5 and don’t wear any facial hair. Everyone else is getting shot.

  15. Is it ironic that the Detroit media is reporting on Baltimore’s crime problem? Like there isn’t enough gang-induced bloodshed in their own town to report on?

  16. When did the police start hesitating to shoot someone with a toy gun? Is that a recent policy? I think these gangbangers need to follow the news a little more closely, and they’ll see that their plan has a fatal flaw.

  17. What’s the problem? Don’t point a gun at a cop and you won’t get shot. Well…maybe.

    • That is just. . . indescribable. Pregnant women and the elderly, ok, I’m on board, but that kid is too young, I’m not shooting him. Yeah, he might shoot me, I think I’m more ok with that than I am with killing him. Back off, negotiate, by all means hesitate! Exactly how many homicides are committed by children under 10? How many officers have been killed in the line of duty by children under 10? I’ll be the answer is either zero to the latter question, or so close to it that it might as well be. I think it’s always a good idea to hesitate before firing on children. I also think anyone who thinks otherwise ought not to go into law enforcement. If you can’t handle the risk, get out of the monkey suit.

  19. I hope I don’t rain on your parade but I wouldn’t recommend kids carrying airsoft gats and especially not pointing them at people. That is common sense, really.

  20. This is nothing new. Back in the 80’s when the orange tip laws were first enacted it took about a week before gangs in California started painting real guns to look like toys. If it looks like a gun it should be treated like a gun regardless of what color it is.

    Strictly speaking, having an orange tip on an airsoft gun is a violation of federal law.
    If you read the actual federal law for orange tips on “toy” guns is states that the orange tip is supposed to designate that item as being incapable of causing physical injury. (This is why paintball guns, BB guns, etc. do not have orange tips). However the geniuses at US Customs have classified airsoft as a “toy” despite the capacity to cause physical injury (I know someone who is blind in one eye because of an airsoft gun) and therefore require an (illegal) orange tip for importation.

    Unfortunately, Customs will continue this idiotic practice until someone decides to spend the time/energy/money to get airsoft re-classified to something similar to how paintball is classified.

    • Yep. Back when my son was little and interested in playing Army with his buddies in pickup airsoft games I went along with reservations but ok after setting up a range in backyard teaching safety rules and mandatory eyewear. But I couldnt do much abot other kids and when he said bigger kids were turning up with fancier guns that hurt, and I googled some of the newer models that could be dialed up to 400fps plus we went the paintball route instead, and played at places that require chrono checks, use of facemasks, etc.

      • Airsoft guns aren’t toys, I’ll give you that. My LGS got a couple in recently to play with and I unpacked them. Once I had a 1911 model figured out and loaded I asked who wanted to take the first shot. No one volunteered and so I reversed it and shot myself in the stomach with it through a tee shirt. I bled from the wound and now 6 weeks later there is the appearance of a circular pink. . . scar for lack of a better word. I’m not exactly wounded, but it hurt, a lot! I don’t see anyone dying from a hit with an air soft gun but I wouldn’t call it a toy either.

        (Rib me all you want, you can’t do worse than the gun shop boys did as the blood blossomed through my white tee-shirt after the hit.)

        • What sort of airsoft gun was this? I’ve never seen a pistol that could shoot through a t-shirt and then cause a wound. Just off-hand, from what you’re describing, it sounds like the pistol was one of those CO2 BB pistols. (You know, the sort that shoot 4.5 mm copper pellets, not 6mm plastic)

        • I haven’t (and will not) tried shooting myself with it (thanks for the confession), but I have a full auto electric airsoft rifle, and it shreds the pads of prickly pear cactus at 20 feet, I suspect it could draw blood.

  21. It light of the current situation, I have decided to paint my dog’s nose orange…

  22. Just a technical note. Painting an orange tip on a real gun is not PSYOP. It is camouflage, concealment and deception or CCD.

  23. The COPS should have Orange Tips on their Guns, then it would make the PERPS think they are not real Guns …..

  24. Cops don’t pause when they see clear or completely colored water or airsoft guns. There was a case a few years ago a few miles away from my house where a cop shot at a kid (an actual child around 10 years old) playing with a water gun that looked nothing like a real gun. Luckily he was a poor shot and missed numerous times.

    If you or your child is interested in Airsoft be sure to check out Airsoft communities in the area. Regulated and officiated games run from free to up to $200, depending on the type of game. Playing in a supported event is far safer and more engaging than backyard games.

  25. I feel responsible for this. In a post a few days ago I suggested that Amanda Marcotte, who equivocated a firearm to a dildo, paint the tip of said dildo orange so she would not confuse a toy with a tool.

    I think the Baltimore gangsters may have taken it to the next level. We must pull all the high capacity orange paint cans off the shelf at once. I can’t decide whether to ban all orange paint or to go “shall issue”. Oh wait…it’s both the same thing.

    Amanda, if you’re in Baltimore you’re on your own. God speed.

    • Next you will be wanting the White House Barber to dye Barty’s hair orange because he is a dildo as well. ( a fake prick)

  26. A little fiberglass, and it can look like Elroy Jetsons gun. Any person with time talent and imagination can make something that would look safe yet be deadly.

    • Heck, if criminals weren’t as stupid as liberals, they could build a crude single shot gun with a shoplifting trip to Home Depot, and make it look like anything they want such as a cell phone, umbrella, or flashlight.

  27. Dummies! You gotta paint the whole thing bright colors and carefully print “NERF” on side! “Super Soaker” works, too. Alternatively, get a rasberry LC9.

  28. There shouldn’t be anything amusing about this act yet it comes under the Law of Unintended Consequences and that to me makes it sorta funny.

  29. So that’s the problem with wallets/cell phones/Wii controllers – they don’t have orange tips!

  30. The truth is that if ANYONE lifts ANYTHING that looks like a real gun at an officer, they have the right to kill that person. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? The truth of the matter is that kids should be allowed to be kids, but their parents should be RESPONSIBLE enough to teach them that play guns are NOT to be pointed at police, paramedics, pedestrians, the public, etc. as though they were a real gun. Playing cops and robbers in one’s own back yard is one thing, but to take a false pistol out into public and act as if it is real is just as stupid today as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. It got folks killed then, and it will get folks killed today. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and COMMON SENSE goes a long way to keeping people safe and bad guys on the run. Make Cop killing a capital offence, with the sentence carried out immediately following trial and conviction, in a public way, and you will watch the crime stats for such fall. Just saying.

    • When I was a kid, I had a book on jujitsu that instructed on how to come up behind an officer, as a prank, and use his baton to pin his arm and flip him on his keester.
      It also contained instruction on how to stop a running person with a gun as they passed you and not get shot.

  31. This is the whole problem with the whole attempt at gun control, they are writing laws aimed at people actively planning to break the law to the point that they plan on having a confrontation with LEOs and fully intend to shoot it out with them. Somehow I don’t think that type of person will give a care in the world about another law, it’s simply there to incovienence people that go out of their way not to break the law. Rule one to avoid shoot outs with anybody, cop or not. Don’t point a gun, real or fake at them. Guess that solution is to simple.

  32. Cops have never paused for this very reason. Its not exactly a huge logic chasm to leap.

    Orange tips are security theater 101.

    • I am not the biggest fan of cops on this site, but cops SHOULD treat something that looks like a gun, as a gun. Those holding the toys should be spring loaded to drop the damn things on the ground the INSTANT they see or hear a police officer. Otherwise, their deaths do not concern me, and their parents should serve 5 years. Including absentee fathers. Teach your children well.

  33. Boy, when humans are capable of shooting laser beams out of their eyes, things are going to get really interesting.

  34. Amadou Diallo was shot and killed by the police for holding a cell phone. He could have painted it International Orange and he still would have been killed. If it’s in your hand and you make a “furtive movement” (e.g., breathing), you’re gonna get shot by the po-po. So painting the tips of guns doesn’t seem like a winning tactic.

    • The obvious solution is to paint the tip of your cell phone orange. Also your wallet, and your remote control.

      I’m still trying to figure out how to paint the end of “nothing” orange.

      • Orange nail-paint, you know, the stuff girls wear. Or, if your head is especially threatening, you should wear neon orange lip-stick. 😛

  35. This doesn’t happen already? ‘Thick as thieves’ isn’t really intended as this, but they really are bloody thick if they haven’t thought of this before.

  36. Everyone is missing the glaring potential problem that I see here. I doubt the cops will pause, at least not at first. What I foresee happening is a bunch of these punks will go out, some with real guns with orange tips painted but also with a few Airsoft guns mixed in. They will get into a shootout with the cops, and a few of momma’s angels will get sent to heaven and then Al and Jesse and MSNBC will jump all over the police like a bunch of piranhas on a chicken leg. The officers will be fired, the charges against the other punks will get dropped and then the police will start to hesitate.

    • A couple of points:

      1. I don’t think the idea of intentionally getting into the middle of a real firefight armed only with an airsoft gun in going to appeal to… well, anybody.

      2. The presence of actual firearms at said firefight is pretty much going to exonerate any police involved. As well it should.

  37. If a gangbanger points any color gun at a cop, it s commense fire by the cops and so it should be.You don t wait and find out what brand gun they are pointing! Besides if you’ re a gangbanger, my personal opinion is wipe em all out, but that’s’just me.

    • Hold your tongue! We need to continue to allow them to kill each other en masse. Not our business.

  38. It MIGHT make an officer pause. But with guns coming colored from manufacturers or aftermarket modifications plus this being a known tactic of criminals, it shouldn’t.

  40. I am pretty sure this is a case of a police chief mistaking a satire story for a real story and running with it. Notice how it is only on WDIF (Detroit Channel 4). The story originally ran here: http://www.callthecops.net/gang-leaders-tell-membership-paint-gun-barrels-orange-cops-will-shoot/ but they have since retracted it. I remember the pic WDIV is showing on that ‘safety warning’ from that story tho. Another gun page ran with it also on the day they posted it until it was pointed out that they are a satire site.

  41. Orange tip or not if it looks like a gun and puts you in fear of your life shoot the person holding it to the ground. Where I live several officers have righteously shot fools with airsoft guns who acted in a threatening manner.

  42. Funny I just brought this up on the last air soft article. Point still holds:

    If there is no definitive feature that can at a moments glance be used to determine the authenticity of the pistol, orange tip or no, treat it as real. Responsibility is not one sided.

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