Paul Helmke on Evil Colored Guns
Paul Helmke & The Brady Campaign weighed in on the colored guns debate. I have to agree with Sebastian on two of the main points in his post. I don’t like people telling me what I can and cannot do with my property, and may well have to find an excuse to paint a gun in neon colors, just because the nanny state doesn’t want us to. Also, Steve Lauer is laughing all the way to the bank on this. You can find an interview with Steve on Cam & Company in the NRANews archives (look under 2007 annual meeting, Steve Lauer), in which he says that Mayor Bloomberg’s ban “put them on the map”.
As to the DuraCoat line, while there are a number of “electric” colors, there are many other colors, including camo, colors that match many “traditional” colors that could be used for many customizations and historic replicas, none of which have anything to do with making a gun look like a toy. If you wanted to make a gun look like a toy, there are many options available to a criminal that are much easier and cheaper. At a minimum, to do a proper job DuraCoating a gun in one of the electric line, you need about $25 of the DuraCoat product, and an air brush and the accompanying equipment. A better job requires bead blasting and parkerizing (Second Snowflakes in Hell reference, DuraCoat Process). A can of Krylon costs about $5. Orange electrical tape to wrap around the muzzle costs about $.95. Furthermore, what about the people that use a magic marker to make a toy gun look real? Time to ban Sharpies!
Is there a legitimate use for electric colors other than offending the easily offended? I have seen rifles make for adults with purple furniture. In training scenarios that include real firearms, there are times that the added visibility is a benefit. People, including law enforcement, working in an environment where they could become separated from their weapon, could also benefit from the visibility. Many competitive shooters (men and women), including the US Shooting Team that competes internationally including the Olympics, like to paint their guns all sorts of colors.
As to police, as I have said in the past, a suspect that is appears to be threatening an officer with a weapon should be engaged accordingly. A person who gets shot because they point an AirSoft gun, squirt gun, or painted real gun at an officer is completely at fault for whatever happens to them at that point.
In the end, this is about attacking the gun industry. We have seen attacks on guns that are too black, now that are too colorful. All this is aimed at an end-state of eliminating guns. Throwing this very useful product under the bus is counterproductive to the firearms community as a whole.
this law is to protect the people who own guns. They started making toy guns bright colors so people know that they are toys. Having real guns these colors just confuses everybody. People with real guns can make them look fake, and people with toy guns can are put in danger. Police only have milliseconds to react and decide whether a threat is real or not. Someone that has a gun that looks like a toy could be killed, or someone with a real gun can fool others. It’s not an attack it’s a safety issue.
Jed,
The problem is, if criminals really wanted to do this, they’d just go buy a can of Krylon. I think we need to avoid falling into the trap of buying into the Brady assertion that this is even a problem. Is there any case of a criminal painting his firearm Barney Purple in order to confuse police?
Jed,
Neither Mike Bloomberg nor Paul Helmke are going to do ANYTHING to help gun owners. They do things to make life more difficult for gun owners and manufacturers. While it may not be an inalienable right to have a pink gun, this is just another attack on a good company. If this was about painting guns to fool the police, that would be what they made illegal, instead of targeting a company that specializes in gun finishing, firearms, and other accessories. I understand that this can be used to make gun owners look bad, but so can “assault rifles”,”Scoped Sniper Rifles”, and on and on. We cannot afford to give up rights whenever the anti-gun groups call something evil.