Toy Guns Required To Be Brightly Colored Under New California Law
SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- Governor Jerry Brown signed a first of its kind law aimed at toy guns in the wake of a fatal police shooting in Santa Rosa where a Sheriff's Deputy mistook a replica firearm for a real assault rifle.
The law requires replica guns to be brightly colored.
"Thoys should look like toys and not guns and they have in the past very definitely looked like guns in order to grab the attention of young people who buy them," Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane said.
Zane, one of the bill's major supporters says not only will this send a message to toy manufacturers, but also help law enforcement.
"It's tough on them to be out in these dangerous places and see these toys and be able to recognize whether they're a gun or whether they're a toy."
Santa Rosa teenager Andy Lopez was shot and killed by a Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy who believed the boys toy gun was a real assault rifle. The orange tip of Lopez' toy gun had been removed.