What do you think of Airsoft?

[arkirk]

Dismal: You think cops should be automatically in command of every aspect of the minority peoples' lives and they should have to comply instantly with whatever a cop says. What you are telling me is that kid was shot because he refused to drop a toy gun. By not dropping it, he was somehow in illegally in possession of a toy gun and therefore deserved to be shot to death. Use you head, Derek! It was a kid! Got that?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do you have some evidence that realistic looking airsoft guns are causing dead kids at a higher rate than unrealistic ones would?

Off the top of my head there was a case locally some years back that provoked some outrage in the black community. Yeah, the kid had no rap sheet--but he was driving a stolen car and pointed a realistic fake gun at the cop when he cornered himself. (You don't expect 4-lane streets to simply dead end. At the time in question the freeway interchange hadn't been built yet, the street had no place to go.)

Because I have already provide the evidence that swimming pools and playgrounds kill and injure large numbers of kids.

The comparison isn't with such equipment per se. We aren't saying to ban toy guns.

A better comparison would be with safety requirements of pools--when the people behind us wanted to put in a pool they came over and asked permission to modify the fence (it's a shared fence) to raise it to 6'. Pools aren't banned but they have barrier requirements.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I looked at the first one:

Two patrolling officers spotted the teenager holding the gun and repeatedly ordered him to drop his weapon, according to a statement from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. “The deputies fired several rounds from their handguns at the subject striking him several times,” it said. “The subject fell to the ground and landed on top of the rifle he was carrying.”

This kid was not shot because he had a toy gun but because he did not drop it when the police repeatedly told him to.

But if the cops hadn't mistaken the fake for a real weapon the shooting wouldn't have happened.

Shootings involving fake weapons don't normally happen out of the blue, the person either threatens with it (see my post above) or fails to drop it when ordered to. That doesn't change the fact that if kids didn't have realistic fakes there would be a lot less such incidents.

 

[dismal]

Dismal: You think cops should be automatically in command of every aspect of the minority peoples' lives and they should have to comply instantly with whatever a cop says. What you are telling me is that kid was shot because he refused to drop a toy gun. By not dropping it, he was somehow in illegally in possession of a toy gun and therefore deserved to be shot to death. Use you head, Derek! It was a kid! Got that?

I am not a big fan of cops shooting people, thanks.

Even non-minorities.

 

[dismal]

I looked at the first one:



This kid was not shot because he had a toy gun but because he did not drop it when the police repeatedly told him to.

But if the cops hadn't mistaken the fake for a real weapon the shooting wouldn't have happened.

Shootings involving fake weapons don't normally happen out of the blue, the person either threatens with it (see my post above) or fails to drop it when ordered to. That doesn't change the fact that if kids didn't have realistic fakes there would be a lot less such incidents.

Cops mistake things for weapons that aren't even close to being weapons. It's dangerous to argue policy by anecdote.

One of the issues in this case was the toy gun did not have an orange tip. The kid must have done something to it. If government hadn't passed a law requiring an orange tip on toy guns the cops might not have felt so threatened. The kid might be alive today.

A person that wants a gun to look real can buy an orange gun and spray paint it black. A person that wants a gun to look fake can buy a real gun and paint it orange. In that google link there was a story about someone getting accidentally shot with a real pink gun they thought was a toy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But if the cops hadn't mistaken the fake for a real weapon the shooting wouldn't have happened.

Shootings involving fake weapons don't normally happen out of the blue, the person either threatens with it (see my post above) or fails to drop it when ordered to. That doesn't change the fact that if kids didn't have realistic fakes there would be a lot less such incidents.

Cops mistake things for weapons that aren't even close to being weapons. It's dangerous to argue policy by anecdote.

One of the issues in this case was the toy gun did not have an orange tip. The kid must have done something to it. If government hadn't passed a law requiring an orange tip on toy guns the cops might not have felt so threatened. The kid might be alive today.

A person that wants a gun to look real can buy an orange gun and spray paint it black. A person that wants a gun to look fake can buy a real gun and paint it orange. In that google link there was a story about someone getting accidentally shot with a real pink gun they thought was a toy.

I don't see the orange tips as adequate. For the purposes of sales I would class anything that can fairly easily be modified to look real to be only sold to adults. Make toys look unrealistic or do things to them that are inconsistent with a real gun--say a chunk missing from the barrel.

 

[Jarhyn]

Plenty of cases:
https://www.google.com/search?newwi...2.0....0...1c.1.51.serp..5.3.4228.GxxxRu_bElY

2 million hits.


Article references quite a few incidents
http://nation.time.com/2013/10/25/toy-guns-deadly-consequences/

The Department of Justice says the federal government doesn’t keep ongoing statistics on the trend, but in a 1990 paper funded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. police reported that they had used or threatened to use force “in a confrontation where an imitation gun had been mistaken for a real firearm” at a rate of about 200 incidents per year. The paper’s authors suggested that this number was “significantly underreported.” A series of toy gun-related deaths in the late 80s helped pass a federal amendment, sponsored by Republican Sen. Bob Dole, that requires all toy, “look-alike,” or imitation firearms to have a bright orange plug or other salient marking. But manufacturers don’t always adhere to required standards and markings can be altered, according to law enforcement.

I looked at the first one:

Two patrolling officers spotted the teenager holding the gun and repeatedly ordered him to drop his weapon, according to a statement from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. “The deputies fired several rounds from their handguns at the subject striking him several times,” it said. “The subject fell to the ground and landed on top of the rifle he was carrying.”

This kid was not shot because he had a toy gun but because he did not drop it when the police repeatedly told him to.

He's a fucking KID. What do you want from the guy. I argued previously that a cop deserved the benefit of the doubt over no lethally punchin someone in a stressful and confusing situation. With a kid, the same thing applies. Someone is screaming, they don't know who or why or even understand the function of police, and they have their toy. For all they know someone wants to take it! If he had not been carrying THAT toy, he would not have been shot.

 

[dismal]

t do you want from the guy. I argued previously that a cop deserved the benefit of the doubt over no lethally punchin someone in a stressful and confusing situation. With a kid, the same thing applies. Someone is screaming, they don't know who or why or even understand the function of police, and they have their toy. For all they know someone wants to take it! If he had not been carrying THAT toy, he would not have been shot.

There's not much point in arguing about whether the cop was justified in this context. Your general point it true either way. Had he not been brandishing a toy gun he would not be dead.

My point is more that the same can be said of most any accidental death. Had he not been on that swing set he would not be dead. Had he not drank a quart of Jack Daniels and gone into that swimming pool he would not be dead.

But when I hear someone drank a quart of Jack Daniels and drowned in a swimming pool I am not moved to call for the banning of either Jack Daniels or swimming pools.

 

[Jarhyn]

t do you want from the guy. I argued previously that a cop deserved the benefit of the doubt over no lethally punchin someone in a stressful and confusing situation. With a kid, the same thing applies. Someone is screaming, they don't know who or why or even understand the function of police, and they have their toy. For all they know someone wants to take it! If he had not been carrying THAT toy, he would not have been shot.

There's not much point in arguing about whether the cop was justified in this context. Your general point it true either way. Had he not been brandishing a toy gun he would not be dead.

My point is more that the same can be said of most any accidental death. Had he not been on that swing set he would not be dead. Had he not drank a quart of Jack Daniels and gone into that swimming pool he would not be dead.

But when I hear someone drank a quart of Jack Daniels and drowned in a swimming pool I am not moved to call for the banning of either Jack Daniels or swimming pools.

We aren't TALKING about people here though. We are talking about kids, who cannot understand the gravity and danger of their actions.

We are talking about things that look like weapons. That even if seen clearly and in good light a cop would actually be MORE sure he needed to defend himself.

You must really suck at Bayesian analysis and heuristics if you can't understand that just because some cops mistake things that are not clearly weapons does not abrogate the need to prevent the proliferation of things that ARE clearly weapons in the hands of kids (particularly when despite the clarity of their weapon-ness they are not weapons).

Just because the dice come up winner once for you, it does not mean that it is a good gamble to have taken. And just because they come up loser does not mean it wasn't. It is based on the odds. And the gamble you propose increases the odds of dead children, and doesn't improve any measurable payout. It is flatly a bad gamble, and those kids represent my money and survival potential. You are gambling with my money and life when you gamble with kids, and for what? Amusement? Do you LIKE seeing more kids shot because they have targets put on them?

 

[dismal]

There's not much point in arguing about whether the cop was justified in this context. Your general point it true either way. Had he not been brandishing a toy gun he would not be dead.

My point is more that the same can be said of most any accidental death. Had he not been on that swing set he would not be dead. Had he not drank a quart of Jack Daniels and gone into that swimming pool he would not be dead.

But when I hear someone drank a quart of Jack Daniels and drowned in a swimming pool I am not moved to call for the banning of either Jack Daniels or swimming pools.

We aren't TALKING about people here though. We are talking about kids, who cannot understand the gravity and danger of their actions.

We are talking about things that look like weapons. That even if seen clearly and in good light a cop would actually be MORE sure he needed to defend himself.

You must really suck at Bayesian analysis and heuristics if you can't understand that just because some cops mistake things that are not clearly weapons does not abrogate the need to prevent the proliferation of things that ARE clearly weapons in the hands of kids (particularly when despite the clarity of their weapon-ness they are not weapons).

Just because the dice come up winner once for you, it does not mean that it is a good gamble to have taken. And just because they come up loser does not mean it wasn't. It is based on the odds. And the gamble you propose increases the odds of dead children, and doesn't improve any measurable payout. It is flatly a bad gamble, and those kids represent my money and survival potential. You are gambling with my money and life when you gamble with kids, and for what? Amusement? Do you LIKE seeing more kids shot because they have targets put on them?

Yeah, I get all that. What I don't have is much evidence that there would be a meaningfully safer life for kids if toy guns were made less realistic. I have a few ambiguous anecdotes.

Before you set out to lecture people about Bayesian statistics, maybe provide some statistics that support your argument. Because until statistics are provided we are not having a debate that involves statistics.

When I set out to demonstrate that pools, playgrounds and bicycles kill and injure a lot of kids (yet we tolerate them) I provided some statistics that showed pools, playground and bicycles kill a lot of kids.

Without some evidence, I am not yet convinced that something like changing the color of a toy gun will result in materially fewer deaths of kids. On the face of it, I imagine teaching kids how to behave around cops would save a lot more lives. All the lives that could be saved by changing toy gun color and more.

 

[Jarhyn]

Bayesian analysis does not require statistics for BASIC examples. A trained responder's Bayesian analysis is 'if looks like gun, and pointed at self, shoot it. The probability of identifying a gun is directly and absolutely caused by how much a thing looks like a fucking gun. Adding a mitigation to the heuristic is something humans do; it's not a disputed element of psychology that adding contextual indicators allows a more accurate analysis of not-a. If A and B?, likely C. If A and !B, definitely C. If A and B, !C. People are Bayesian inference engines, when operating in identification and analysis tasks. Adding an additional prior Which 1:1 correlates with the actuality of the threat WILL reduce false-positives.

If there is a single situation where we can eliminate 10 years of food, rent, education, and housing costs being wasted on a false-positive, then it is with banning realistic looking firearm[P][/P] toys. We have provided actual cases where it would have saved lives. There is another thread where a guy was shot in a store for picking it up off the shelf! There is nothing nebulous about that. If it doesn't look like a fucking gun, people will be less likely to shoot someone holding it for thinking it looks like a gun.

Let me recap: you said (essentially) that there is no proof that not letting kids run around with things that look like guns will prevent people from mistaking their activities as running around with guns. In other brews, flat earthers argue that pictures of a spherical earth are not evidence that the earth is spherical, homophobes argue that letting people marry will lead to fewer married people, and creationists argue that DNA means we are created.

 

[RavenSky]

So if kids are out running around with air soft guns when they have air soft gun battles (which I have personally observed to be the case) it makes a few deaths OK?

You missed my point completely.

Nothing about the fun exercise of a play gun battle requires realistic looking guns. Nothing. There is no inherent societal benefit when the guns look realistic.

We have tons of fun having fun gun battles at home with white and orange plastic water-guns. We have a great time. And not one person sits out because the guns don't look deadly enough. Not one.


My premise is that there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO VALUE IN REALISM OF PLAY GUNS. None. Zilch.
And there is a whole lot of detriment. Realistic looking toy guns lead to deaths while giving no benefit at all.

My kids can have a fun gun battle with pine cones and crooked cucumbers. They do not require realism to get their fitness. or fun.

This this a thousand times this

 

[Deepak]

I looked at the first one:



This kid was not shot because he had a toy gun but because he did not drop it when the police repeatedly told him to.

But if the cops hadn't mistaken the fake for a real weapon the shooting wouldn't have happened.

Shootings involving fake weapons don't normally happen out of the blue, the person either threatens with it (see my post above) or fails to drop it when ordered to. That doesn't change the fact that if kids didn't have realistic fakes there would be a lot less such incidents.

Tell that to Amadou Diallo.

What would help more, I think, is to have fewer chicken-shit maniacs who are playing soldier as police officers.

If this guy took one minute to observe the kid's activities and assess whether he even seemed like a threat the kid would have survived. The old Woolworth toy guns looked plenty real, and they didn't have any orange tips on them, but kids didn't get shot by the cops for playing with toy guns when Woolworth still existed either. In those days, as the data will show, it was much more dangerous to be a police officer, but the bad cops then were mostly just racketeers on the dole and not stark raving maniacs.

Now we have people who go into situations with the expectation that they have somewhere between 110-150% chance of dying when approaching a little kid (read - suspected terrist), barking orders with weapons drawn, and expecting the scared kid to comply with the order rather than freeze up then shooting him because he didn't instantly comply.

We have police recruitment videos like this:
[YOUTUBE]smqZ108ZwAo[/YOUTUBE]

Cops who refer to non-police as 'civilian' as if they're not themselves also civilians. Cops whose first instinct when encountering someone in a diabetic coma is to beat the fuck out of them.

Changing the toys might feel satisfying but it's not really going to solve the problem. That is to say the children's toys...

There's a natural feedback mechanism here too, because many good police unwilling to associate with these sorts of nitwits grow jaded and leave the force, thus we're stuck with even more nitwits.

 

[dismal]

Bayesian analysis does not require statistics for BASIC examples. A trained responder's Bayesian analysis is 'if looks like gun, and pointed at self, shoot it. The probability of identifying a gun is directly and absolutely caused by how much a thing looks like a fucking gun. Adding a mitigation to the heuristic is something humans do; it's not a disputed element of psychology that adding contextual indicators allows a more accurate analysis of not-a. If A and B?, likely C. If A and !B, definitely C. If A and B, !C. People are Bayesian inference engines, when operating in identification and analysis tasks. Adding an additional prior Which 1:1 correlates with the actuality of the threat WILL reduce false-positives.

If there is a single situation where we can eliminate 10 years of food, rent, education, and housing costs being wasted on a false-positive, then it is with banning realistic looking firearm[P][/P] toys. We have provided actual cases where it would have saved lives. There is another thread where a guy was shot in a store for picking it up off the shelf! There is nothing nebulous about that. If it doesn't look like a fucking gun, people will be less likely to shoot someone holding it for thinking it looks like a gun.

Let me recap: you said (essentially) that there is no proof that not letting kids run around with things that look like guns will prevent people from mistaking their activities as running around with guns. In other brews, flat earthers argue that pictures of a spherical earth are not evidence that the earth is spherical, homophobes argue that letting people marry will lead to fewer married people, and creationists argue that DNA means we are created.

Let me know when you have some statistics that support your point. I get that you can vent emotionally.

 

[Jarhyn]

Just to recap, then, your position is that because there's not been a study directly on the idea that people running around with fake guns makes it easier for an officer to mistake them as running around with real guns (as opposed to running around with something that does not look like an actual gun) that there is no argue net that we should not let people do that?

You yourself argued that the officer in the walmart pellet gun thread is not culpable for failing to identify a pellet gun because it was impossible to distinguish from a real one! You realize there's a need for distinguishing marks. It's a very safe theory that mistakability directly correlates with realism.

We can put a law in place, see if it is effective, and if it isn't we lose nothing. You propose we do nothing and waste time, money, and quite likely lives because... Why exactly?

 

[dismal]

Just to recap, then, your position is that because there's not been a study directly on the idea that people running around with fake guns makes it easier for an officer to mistake them as running around with real guns (as opposed to running around with something that does not look like an actual gun) that there is no argue net that we should not let people do that?

It's more that I could be convinced that these guns presented some excessive danger that say, orange colored guns, would not but haven't been convinced.

We can put a law in place, see if it is effective, and if it isn't we lose nothing. You propose we do nothing and waste time, money, and quite likely lives because... Why exactly?

I do not accept the premise that we are wasting a lot of time, money and lives over this due to lack of evidence we are wasting a lot of time, money and lives over this.