This story from Guns.com is circulating amongst various forums, especially the airsoft communities, and I even saw a comment by Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft, "We told you so!" This is about an increasing number of real steel firearms painted to look like toys from afar being confiscated by the police from criminals.

For those who are familiar with the "color your replica" stories, this is about the campaign by politicians to have firearm replicas, especially airsoft guns, painted bright to distinguish them from real steel firearms.  This is not only in the U.S. but also around the world, even in the UK where 2-tone airsoft guns can be purchased without any requirement of a Valid VCRA defence by customers aged 18 and above.

In the Guns.com report, it says that:

Police in and around San Francisco voiced concerns earlier this week about a disturbing trend they’ve noticed during recent gun seizures: criminals painting or otherwise obtaining vibrantly colored guns that, from a distance, appear to be toys.

Pleasant Hill Police Chief Pete Dunbar told reporters last week that Oakland area precincts were flooded with officer safety bulletins to be on the lookout for guns that are realistic facsimiles of toy guns.  Reports indicate people are painting handguns and rifles with high quality Duracoat, often in dramatic color patterns and design schemes that clearly resemble children’s toys

The airsoft communities in affected areas have been warning authorities that such colour requirements don’t really work to distinguish airsoft guns from real firearms as criminals will just paint their guns. It will pose a problem for the police as they may just let their guard down when they see a brightly painted gun, thinking it’s a harmless toy gun until it's too late. It can also be used on unsuspecting people who can easily get robbed or harmed by someone with something that they think "looks harmless."

Since it's an effect of regulations which are either in effect or being proposed,  police may now have to look hard at every brightly coloured toy guns that can be wielded by even children they see. This also presents danger for kids who do not know how to react when ordered by the police who may have their guns drawn to put down their toy guns in public and can just result into fatal consequences.

It's a dilemma now for both gun owners (including airsoft gun owners) and law enforcement since politicians thought that it's an easy way of regulating replica firearms. This means that also the orange tip requirement for airsoft is now a useless thing since criminals would also do the same.

But the good thing for those in the airsoft community is that we have been instructing airsoft players to treat airsoft guns as real ones and thus transport them in gun bags and not to display these in public places. This should remain to be a strict rule in the community even if airsoft players are carrying brightly coloured airsoft guns.