Sen. Barbara Boxer introduces bill to strengthen regulation of toy guns

Sen. Barbara Boxer wants the nation to follow California’s lead by setting new regulations for authentic-looking toy guns, a move that comes in the wake of high-profile police shootings in Santa Rosa and elsewhere around the country.

“No child should ever die because a police officer or anyone else mistakes a toy gun for a real weapon,” the California Democrat said in a statement. “This legislation will protect our kids and help law enforcement by making sure that imitation firearms cannot be mistaken for real firearms.”

Boxer’s legislation, similar to a bill approved in California last year, would give the Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to regulate all imitation firearms, including airsoft, BB and pellet-firing guns, and require the exterior surface of all such products sold in the United States to be painted a particular color or combination of colors so they are clearly distinguishable from real firearms.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that will impose the most stringent restrictions on BB guns and toy or replica firearms of any state in the nation once the law takes effect Jan. 1, 2016.

The legislation was in direct response to the October 2012 death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez, who was shot and killed by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy as the boy was walking on a sidewalk carrying what turned out to be a plastic gun designed to look like an AK-47 assault rifle.

Boxer on Wednesday referenced Lopez’s death in announcing her bill, as well as the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was killed in Cleveland, Ohio last November by an officer who mistook the toy airsoft gun the boy was playing with for a real gun.

Boxer sent a letter to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission in December urging regulators to impose new color requirements on imitation firearms. The letter referenced only toy airsoft guns because the commission does not have the authority to regulate BB guns and other imitation firearms. Boxer’s bill would expand the agency’s authority.

Boxer’s office said the senator was on the Capitol floor Thursday and unavailable for comment.

Federal statutes require that weapons that expel plastic pellets, such as airsoft guns, be equipped with orange tips. Lopez appeared to have been violating both state and federal statutes by openly carrying an airsoft gun that did not have an orange tip and was not entirely colored a certain way or translucent. He also had a clear plastic replica handgun with an orange tip at the end of the barrel tucked in his waistband.

The airsoft gun that Rice had in his possession the day the boy was shot in Cleveland also reportedly was missing an orange tip.

California’s law sparked protest from the gun lobby, which called it a de facto ban on replica guns and warned that criminals will simply skirt the new rules by painting real guns to make them look fake.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@deadlinederek.