by Nia Hamm
NEW YORK – Five retailers including online giants Amazon and Walmart have agreed this week to stop selling realistic-looking toy guns. In a settlement agreement with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the companies will pay more than $300,000 for violating public safety laws.
Leah Gunn Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, said the crackdown should help decrease preventable gun deaths “and send a message, and provide an example to other states across the country to follow New York’s lead.”
There has been a push to regulate toy guns since 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot while holding a realistic airsoft gun by a Cleveland police officer last November.
New York City law requires toy guns to be entirely brightly colored, while state law mandates markings along the sides and tip of the toy gun. The laws are meant to distinguish real guns from fake ones, but experts such as Rick Locker, general counsel for the Toy Industry Association, say that for retailers, the laws can be confusing.
“When you have some states that accept just a bright-colored tip and don’t have the added coloration requirement on the imitation firearm – and those products are available on the Internet – you sometimes have this confusion,” he said. “And I think that’s what happened here.”
New York’s crackdown comes at a time in which a slew of summer shootings has put gun violence in sharp focus.
More information on the settlement is online at ag.ny.gov.
PHOTO: New York state regulators have cracked down on retailers selling life-like toy guns, in an attempt to reduce accidental shootings by people who assume a toy gun is real. Photo credit: Travis Grawey/freeimages.com.
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