Tuesday, August 04, 2009
BB gun on H Street
You may have seen a report of a gun drawn on H Street. Apparently what happened is that a kid (involved in a dispute) drew a weapon and threatened someone. An off duty officer approached and drew his gun. The kid dropped his weapon and ran. It turned out to be a realistic (as in looked like a gun, and loaded like one) BB gun. The kid ran off.
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13 comments:
That kid is lucky the cop or somebody else didn't shoot him.
And if the cop had shot him, all we'd hear about is the "bad cop and the injustice of it all!"
I would have to take issue with the "realistic looking" part. Anyone who is familiar with guns can tell that a BB gun isn't a real gun. I had several BB guns as a kid and have fired lots of real guns. One would hope that police get training on identifying weapons.
Probably not a ton of time to decide in a moment like that and, frankly, I wouldn't want a cop to take TOO much time, given the circumstances.
Like Charles said, that kid is lucky he didn't get shot.
i don't know what type of BB gun was used in this instance, but if i'm a cop and see a kid with one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airsoft_gun then i'm shooting ..
-cb
DCJaded, I think you may need to do some research. The bb guns created today look very similar to real weapons, especially when drawn at night. Toys have changed greatly from what you experienced as a kid.
DCJaded, you must have grown up in San Francisco. 30 years ago the BB hand guns looked like 9mm Baretta's, I had one. You pull that on a cop and point it at him, he doesn't have time to say "exceuse me, could you turn that to the left so I can see if it says "REPLICA" on the side? They look very much like real handguns.
I'm not sure what the police are worried about as hand guns are still illegal outside the home and must be registered. So it obviously could not have been a gun since they are restricted outside the home. Duhhhh
I'm not so sure BB guns are actually legal in DC. I think the law here actually defines them as "destructive devices" and bans them.
And even if you know it *is* a "BB gun" (I put that in quotes because I had a .177 pellet gun when I was a kid that could put one of those pellets through the corrugated metal side of our barn) it can still hurt you pretty bad.
I don't think it's realistic to ask a police officer to do much analysis in situations like this. People should not have weapons drawn in public, period. When they do, they're asking for trouble. Thank God the kid didn't aim the gun at the officer.
Thank you off-duty police officer. Zero tolerance.
I'm not so sure BB guns are actually legal in DC. I think the law here actually defines them as "destructive devices" and bans them.
They are legal to use and possess inside a building but illegal outside a building unless unloaded and securely wrapped.
They are legal to use and possess inside a building but illegal outside a building unless unloaded and securely wrapped.
So remember people—if you're going to pull a gun on someone please make sure it's indoors.
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