New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent out cease and desist orders to various retailers Thursday instructing them to halt the sale of toy guns prohibited by state law.
“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” said Attorney General Schneiderman, in a press release.
“New York State law is clear: retailers cannot put children and law enforcement at risk by selling toy guns that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing,” he continued.
Among those to receive the cease and desist letters were WalMart, Amazon.com, Kmart, Sears, and ToyArsenal.com. The letters were prompted by an investigation that found certain retailers failing to follow state guidelines with respect to the sale of toy guns.
“Once this matter was brought to our attention we placed a shipping block on our website to prevent the mentioned items from being sent to the state of New York. We’re also confident that measures are in place to prevent these items from being sold at our New York stores,” Wal-Mart said in a statement to NBC News.
“The safety of our customers is a top priority. We are in the process of immediately removing any non-compliant toy guns that are offered for sale by Sears or Kmart to New York consumers. We will fully cooperate with the New York Attorney General in its investigation,” Sears said in a statement.
Under state law, retailers can not sell toy guns that come in such colors as black, blue, silver or aluminum unless they have a non-removable one-inch-wide orange stripe running down both sides of the barrel and the front end of the barrel.
What about toy Knives, Bow and Arrows, Jump rope you can hang someone with etc…………….
Has anyone ever heard of a thing called what was it ‘a saw’, If they want the Red piece removed it will be gone!!!!
The NY authorities are noted for their oppressive attitudes and efforts. When selling a large Coke is illegal, how can a toy gun be legal? Consider: toy replica firearms are required by law to be marked with brightly colored and distinctive stripes so the cops WON’T mistake them for the real thing and shoot kids. If you follow the folly to its extreme, toy knives, toy spears, bow/arrow sets with suction-cup arrow “points” and a host of other replica weapons must be illegal. It seems this is the direction the great state of NY is going and I wonder that the citizens at large keep electing the nuts who make these laws and policies.
That said, PARENTS have a right and duty to monitor/restrict their kids’ choice of toys. My kids grew up with REAL guns in the house, and we didn’t allow toy weapons of any kind. I took them with me to the range as soon as they were big enough to hold a gun, taught them safe handling and shooting, and demonstrated the destructive power of a gun on a water-filled milk jug at 25 yards. BIG splash, HUGE impression! My kids were shooting magnum handguns by age 10 and both became fine marksmen – and SAFE gun handlers – as they grew up. No-one in my family has ever shot a live human, and we’ve had more than one occasion to “repel boarders” from our home. I’ve never had to explain to my kids the difference between a toy weapon and the real thing, and I don’t need a state official to do so!
When I was a kid, we played with toy cap guns, plastic squirt guns, etc. We managed to grow up knowing the difference, and no-one got killed or injured because of a toy weapon OR because of the real thing. NY parents should be the ones to decide what toys their kids get to play with, and they should also decide whether their own kids (NOT yours or mine) get trained with the real thing. “The State” should get out of the child-rearing business – they’re doing a generally lousy job of protecting and serving the public, especially from their own over-reaching efforts to enforce their own nit-wit ideas by force of the power of their respective offices.
Hey, Eric Schneiderman,…..Shut the hell up!
Who hired you for advice?
I would like to see all the children of NY in a giant gang, with all their toy guns, show up on the Attorney Generals doorstep, in protest.
Wouldn’t that be a hell of a sight for him? Maybe put him out of his misery with a heart attack.
Parents, raise your dam kids. Maybe then they wont be shot.
Or better yet, dumbass adults, quit making babies and dumping them on us.
This isn’t the movie “Idiocracy”
Toy guns are useful in the Darwinian sense, helping to improve the species. If kids, or adults, are unwise enough to openly brandish what looks like a dangerous weapon, then they ought to be eliminated from the gene pool. Whether the brandishing is done in front of peers or the police, it is simply unwise to do something that may trigger a strong fear response from bystanders.
Another step in the right direction would be to make 911 callers responsible for making false ‘panic’ reports. At least two recent deaths of innocents were really caused by 911 calls made by panicky citizens who thought they saw something dangerous that wasn’t (Dayton Walmart and Cleveland park).
— Only common-sense, gun-related decision coming out of NY.
No 2nd amendment supported should oppose this. We should be supporting it wholeheartedly. The Model 1911 replica that got the 12-year-old killed (and the police officer nightmares for the rest of his life) looks nothing like the sliver, pot metal Roy Rogers cap pistol, or wooden stock, bolt action “rifle” I played with as a kid. Think before you pick your 2nd Amendment issues.
Wrong. This isn’t a “Second Amendment” issue, it’s a basic freedom issue. This is a stupid law designed to address a non-issue. The number of “kids” pointing guns at police are so small as to be a non issue. This kid should have been taught by his parents NOT to point a toy gun at ANYONE -especially police. People occasionally get shot by police holding a cell phone, should we mandate all cell phones be fluorescent orange to stop the madness? Perhaps we should ban automobiles to stop traffic deaths also? Where will it stop? If you want to mandate a law to protect children, require basic gun safety rules to be taught in elementary school, such as the “Eddy Eagle” course sponsored by the NRA.
I don’t might toy guns. However, they should stop making real guns look like toys. I am a girl and I think the camo and pink guns are kind of cool looking but I wouldn’t own one, so the real guns should be black or steel and the toys can be anything but black or steel.
Outstanding comment! Why anyone would want a pink gun … oh, too stupid for words. Okay, a few more words: does anyone think a gun is chosen to go with a particular dress or handbag or shoes? Guns are not clothing accessories, not worn as adornment to attract men, or even to invite the approval of other women.
Hmmmm, when I was growing up, we had toy guns. We had BB guns and pellet guns too. Lots of boys had toy guns that were realistic-looking. We never had such problems or concerns about them as there are today. So the real question is- what happened?
Problem is that today the “real steel” is much more readily available and on the street. Gangs/punks/criminals are much quicker to use them than they were 30 years ago.
Guns on the street are “easier to obtain now?” Really? Up until 1968 kids could order guns and ammo out of the classified ads in the back pages of Popular Mechanics, Boy’s Life, even Comic Books and most other magazines. They started at about $8.- (Yes, Eight Bucks!) and were delivered to your house by the US Post office.
Of course we wouldn’t want to blame kids bad behavior on TV, movies and violent video games overseen by brain dead, high or absent parents would we?
When I was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s, we played “Army” or “Guns” or whatever. A kit down the street had a real Japanese bolt-action rifle that his father had brought home from the Pacific. No ammo, of course, and probably no firing pin, but it was fun to play with the real thing, much better than the Kadet Trainer Rifle. Can you imagine some kid roaming the streets of suburbia today with a real rifle to play with?
What a couple of very dumb comments! You certainly are not cop/child friendly. What should a cop do when faced with a kid waving a realistic looking gun at him? His duty is to protect himself and, unfortunately, you from danger. I have many guns and shoot as a hobby and think that it is irresponsibly stupid to have my kid out there with a real looking gun. He can play with a 100% orange one if he wants. But you radicals always support the stupid causes along with the correct ones making all of us gun people look like idiots!
I have a suggestion. Just make drugs and gangs illegal. That should work.
You speak from common sense, Jerry. Some posers will not understand you.
Gee, I guess the cop would need to use his own COMMON SENSE as police officers have for the past several hundred years, huh?
First off, although tragic when it does happen, the number of kids getting shot for pointing toy guns at cops is infinitesimal. Banning toy guns to prevent the very few cases of this happening would be tantamount to banning automobiles to stop traffic deaths. At some point laws aimed at protecting citizens become ridiculous, such as this law.
Guess I should have started my comment with the fact that I have a Masters in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement.
Lack of common sense now a days should be disturbing to all of us. But then again if we don’t have politicians and lawyers holding our hands every second of the day we would all be just standing around with our thumbs in neutral. Grow up and grow a pair, or at least ask your mom to take them out of her purse the next time she leaves home and you’re left in the basement.
Guess the kiddies are going to have to wear orange gloves if they want to play cops and robbers outside with their finger guns.
I thought finger guns were already outlawed
I would not expect less from Herr General Graf und Zu Schneiderman…and his jack-booted minions. Der Reich is alive und well!
No what we need is the whole police training system to be changed back to 50 years ago and to be sure to make real sure what your pointing your gun at. Is it a real threat or just your imagination. And to make sure of their targets and what right you have to raise your gun at another person without reasonable cause or threat. Your life is not in danger just because a man gets out of his car. Your life is not threatened because someone raises their voice to you. This is where training needs to come in. And most o the time if you want grab someone and tackle him or her or grab them and throw them to the ground most want resist.