Nassau bill may shoot down neon-colored guns

[stephanie]

BY RICHARD WEIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, March 27th 2008, 4:00 AM

Nassau County is taking aim at neon- and other custom-painted handguns that officials say endanger police, who may think they are harmless toys.

The controversy over the brightly colored but lethal weapons erupted last week after news broke that a Chippewa Falls, Wis., company was producing the "Bloomberg Collection EZ Camo Kit" - a paint kit that can turn pistols into fashion statements.

The collection, which mocks Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun efforts, features "electric" colors - with names like "Manhattan Red," "Brooklyn Blue," "Bronx Rose," "Queens Green" and "Staten Island Orange" that can be spray-painted onto handguns.

"They think this is a big joke," Nassau Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said of Lauer Custom Weaponry, manufacturer of DuraCoat Firearm Finishes. "This is not a game."

Mulvey called the company's coloration kits "despicable" and said they put police officers' lives in jeopardy.

When confronted with a firearm, police officers have to make split-second decisions about whether to use deadly force or not, Mulvey explained at a press conference Wednesday. If they hesitate - even briefly - because they think the gun a person is brandishing may be fake, they could lose their lives.

The commissioner and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi said yesterday that they are working to "fast track" legislation that would ban Nassau County gun owners from painting their firearms any color other than the standard black, gray, dark green, silver, steel or nickel.


read the rest..
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...lored_g-1.html

[hjmick]

I get that.

[LOki]

The collection, which mocks Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun efforts, features "electric" colors - with names like "Manhattan Red," "Brooklyn Blue," "Bronx Rose," "Queens Green" and "Staten Island Orange" that can be spray-painted onto handguns.

"They think this is a big joke," Nassau Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said of Lauer Custom Weaponry, manufacturer of DuraCoat Firearm Finishes.

I'm laughing.

"This is not a game."

Right. It's a joke.

[Immanuel]

Ouch!

I can understand the concern here.

When I was a kid we played "army" or "cowboys and indians" on the hills behind our homes with toy guns that actually looked like guns, at least to us. Then as more and more kids got shot on accident while flashing a toy gun at a cop toy guy manufacturers started producing guns of different colors so that this wouldn't happen.

Now if you start painting guns to look like toys... the response will be, after a few cops get killed because they thought the gun was a toy... kids will start dying again because cops are not going to wait to find out if it is a toy or not.

Mulvey called the company's coloration kits "despicable" and said they put police officers' lives in jeopardy.

When confronted with a firearm, police officers have to make split-second decisions about whether to use deadly force or not, Mulvey explained at a press conference Wednesday. If they hesitate - even briefly - because they think the gun a person is brandishing may be fake, they could lose their lives.

I wonder how long before they ban toy guns all together?

Immie