It seems that many toy guns on the market are currently prohibited, even though we didn’t know that much about this issue until now. Nonetheless, major retailers like Amazon, WalMart, K-Mart, ToyArsenal and Sears now find themselves in legal trouble because they were selling these prohibited toy guns online. The office of the New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, has sent a cease and desist notice to these companies asking them to stop the sales of the prohibited toy guns.
The problem with these prohibited toy guns is that they look like real guns and aren’t made in accordance with the new legislation asking for toy guns to be painted in bright colors so that they don’t get confused with real guns. Prohibited toy guns are now very controversial after Tamir Rice was shot dead in Cleveland by a police officer who though that his toy gun was real. New legislation say that even if toy guns are made in realistic colors, they should feature one inch wide orange stripes running down on both sides of the barrel, as well as on the front end. The Tamir Rice incident was curious because these supposedly unremovable stripes from the you gun were not present at the time of the shooting.
Prohibited toy guns are now causing legal trouble for retailers, who haven’t made any public statements about the cease and desist notice they have received from the Attorney General. The cease and desist notice as well as the as legislation affects New York at the moment. WalMart had previously had problems with prohibited toy guns, an investigation being conducted into the in-store sales of prohibited toy guns. Schneiderman motivates the cease and desist notice as follows: “When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences. 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.”