"TOY" FIREARMS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 23, 27 January 1934, Page 6

"TOY" FIREARMS

BRITISH PRECAUTIONS

/The House of Lords recently accepted the Commons' amendment to the Firearms and Imitation Firearms Bill, states the London ,'( Times." Thus there will at last be some control over the use of dummy or'toy pistols, as well as of real firearms and offensive'weapons," in resisting or preventing arrest;, and even, the possession, of them at'the.'timb of arrest" may entail a ; term of penal servitude. So far so good. Something is being done to diminish .the evil effects of the unrestricted manufacture and sale of these things. But, as letters recently publishedl here have shown, the use of them by criminals is by no means their only, and is perhaps not their greatest, clanger. Last March a medical man told of a boy of, twelve years old with a bullet in his hand. He had bought a toy revolver; had had the dummy barrel drilled out; and had used ball cartridges in it. Eecontly came a letter from Mr. P. J. Pybus, telling of a boy of twelve years old with a bullet in his brain. Ho had bought a "toy" pistol and a box of bail ammunition. On tho following' day the Medical Officer of Health for Islington wrote on the danger of tetanus from toy pistol wounds, and recorded the death of a man (not the only case of which he knew) from this cause. Arid recently another medical man reported tho death of a boy of fourteen years old from tetanus caught from a toy pistol wound. These instances alone would bo .enough to prove that it is absurd to call such' things toys. A pistol with a barrel more than ten inches long and a hair trigger, which can shoot a bullet through a one-inch deal board at fifteen feet, is no toy. It is a lethal weapon.

Whon the new Firearms Bill was under consideration if was found im,practicable to compel the registration of all dealers and manufacturers of toy pistols, some of which are indeed harmless toys.. Another suggestion comes from Mr. Pybus—that, whereas under the Firearms Act of 1920 no one under fourteen may possess or use a firearm or ammunition, tho age should be raised to seventeen. In the management. of firearms seventeen is not necessarily indre trustworthy than fourteen, or even twelve; and one bit the difficulties is that some of those dangerous .''toys'' manage to escape tho mesh of the Act of 1920. Mr. Hugh Pollard advocates a modification of .that Act to include the "toys," and with them the "sawnoff" shot-gun; and he believes that it would not be difficult, with the help of expert knowledge, to eliminate the redundant weapons without restricting the sale of shot-guns and other necessary firearms. . Along one. qr other of these lines, or perhaps along them all, the law might advance towards the desired end. .'That end is the total disuse of these so-called' toy s. , If the law cannot, go the-whole way, it should be able to count for .the rest on tho good sense of -th* ' community and the public, spirit of^ in ,the trade—of which one eminent' firm of toy-sellers has already " given an example. The commercial loss must be considered; but it can hardly be gicat. The weapons arc not made.in Great Britain, and the profit on the, sale of them cannot count for much in ' the budget of a retailer of toys. '