Why are green or orange guns banned?

[hoffmang]

This is a serious question. Bright green or bright orange guns are banned in California.

CA Penal Code:

12020.3. Any person who, for commercial purposes, purchases, sells,
manufacturers, ships, transports, distributes, or receives a
firearm, where the coloration of the entire exterior surface of the
firearm is bright orange or bright green, either singly, in
combination, or as the predominant color in combination with other
colors in any pattern, is liable for a civil fine in an action
brought by the city attorney of the city or the district attorney for
the county of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000).


Is this a hunting thing? I ask because on another matter - tracer rounds - I didn't understand why they were banned. Tracers were banned because there were documented instances of major forest fires being started in the CA wilderness. I can understand that we're a bit unique as a tinderbox.

So for those who know some history, why no bright green or orange guns?

-Gene

[James R.]

This is a serious question. Bright green or bright orange guns are banned in California.

CA Penal Code:


Is this a hunting thing? I ask because on another matter - tracer rounds - I didn't understand why they were banned. Tracers were banned because there were documented instances of major forest fires being started in the CA wilderness. I can understand that we're a bit unique as a tinderbox.

So for those who know some history, why no bright green or orange guns?

-Gene

Just a guess, but orange is usually reserved for less than lethal firearms. So making guns in green or orange suggests to an officer on the receiving end that he's being faced with a less than lethal firearm and may respond differently. If you paint a real gun orange or green you're basically cheating the system...kinda like not wearing a uniform in a time of war ;-)

Regards,

James R.

[slick_711]

Because toy guns are green/orange. If you could buy a real gun that looked like a toy, and walk into a public place with it people wouldn't necessarily be shocked/worried/upset until you started pumping out lead.

Perfectly sensible law, one of the few CA firearms laws I don't disagree with.

[Inoxmark]

That's a weird one. Maybe to discourage camouflaging real guns to look like toys?

Edit: Enter button lag. Similar guess was posted above.

[Paratus et Vigilans]

Only a WAG, but it seems to me there are lots of toy guns made in those colors, so maybe it's supposed to prevent folks from having guns that can be mistaken for/ hidden as toys - sort of the mirror image problem with the realistic looking airsoft orange tipped toy guns being mistaken for real ones???

I guess we could look up the legislative history and know for certain! :)

[Stanze]

Probably so criminals can't point real firearms at cops that are colored to look like toys and perhaps give them an advantage.

I wonder if any cops were ever killed by someone wielding a bright orange or green gun?:confused:

[hoffmang]

I asked this question because I had it a hunch it had some legit purpose that I didn't understand. I bet its the toy issue.

If it is the toy issue, I'm fine with it, just like I'm fine with the ban on tracer rounds now that I know its a real fire risk.

Part of it is I want to build my wife a hot pink AR which is still legit :D

Anybody else catch the irony that a politically correct gun is not to dark and not too bright?

-Gene

[maxicon]

It's because toy guns that look like real guns are banned in California, and formerly only green and orange toy guns were allowed. This part of the law hasn't kept up with the definition of "imitation firearms" quoted below, as green and orange are no longer the only colors. There are other exceptions for airsoft and such.

On Halloween, when the costume shops are selling real-looking rifles and pistols, they're doing it illegally. Go to Walmart here and look at the toy guns - they're all green or orange. Go to Walmart in Arizona, and you'll find black toy guns with orange muzzles. Some of the Halloween shops sell very realistic looking fake guns.

Here's the law:

12555.Any person who, for commercial purposes, purchases, sells, manufactures, ships, transports, distributes, or receives, by mail order or in any other manner, an imitation firearm except as authorized by this section shall be liable for a civil fine in an action brought by the city attorney or the district attorney of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for each violation.
...
(c) As used in this section, "imitation firearm" does not include any of the following:
...
(3) A device where the entire exterior surface of the device is white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink, or bright purple, either singly or as the predominant color in combination with other colors in any pattern, as provided by federal regulations governing imitation firearms, or where the entire device is constructed of transparent or translucent materials which permits unmistakable observation of the device's complete contents, as provided by federal regulations governing imitation firearms.

[slick_711]

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b78/slick_711/0ga.gif

That was in the back of my closet somewhere lol. All of us know of course that it looks very little like a real 12ga, but imagine an 870 painted up in that color scheme, it wouldn't stand out as a real shotgun to the average civilian. And as most of us postulated, that would be giving the criminal an upper hand in dealing with LEOs who may hesitate to shoot a guy waving a toy gun around.

I think a pink AR for your wife would be awesome, post some pics when it's done :) I had actually considered building up a baby blue one for my girl (she didn't like pink) but for some reason we broke up instead. Guess I'm glad I don't have a blue AR collecting dust in the closet.

[Shane916]

So who determines if the green or orange is "bright" :D

[hoffmang]

Or if the green or orange has the capacity to accept bright :rolleyes:

-Gene

[Jarhead4]

Because non-firing training guns are bright Orange (sometimes Blue). The Bright Orange plastic guns are used in situation training. So, mentally when you see an Orange looking gun you are going to think that it is training gun and hesitate. If you hesitate in a gun fight, you’re dead. Also, because toy guns are suppose to have an orange tip to let someone know that it is not a real gun. And that gets back to the hesitation issue for law enforcement.

Tracer rounds are band because they have a nasty habit of starting fires.

Clear as Mud?

[Pokey]

Probably so criminals can't point real firearms at cops that are colored to look like toys and perhaps give them an advantage.

I wonder if any cops were ever killed by someone wielding a bright orange or green gun?:confused:

If I remember, not long after the whole "toy guns have to be orange" law a cop in the LA area was shot by a guy that had a pistol with the barrel painted orange. The officer had the guy covered but chose not to fire because he believed it to be a toy. Fortunately the officer was wearing armor and survived.
Let hear it for the PRK

[gose]

I asked this question because I had it a hunch it had some legit purpose that I didn't understand. I bet its the toy issue.
If it is the toy issue, I'm fine with it, just like I'm fine with the ban on tracer rounds now that I know its a real fire risk.
Part of it is I want to build my wife a hot pink AR which is still legit :D
Anybody else catch the irony that a politically correct gun is not to dark and not too bright?
-Gene

I've had the same thoughts for my gf, a pink AR with a matching Hello Kitty or My little pony ammo box.

Group buy of pink furniture? :)

[FABIO GETS GOOSED!!!]

Here you go:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/99-00/bill/asm/ab_2051-2100/ab_2053_bill_20000901_chaptered.pdf

Looks like this provision was added at the same time that Penal Code 417.2 was amended to exclude from the definition of "imitation firearm" an "[i]mitation firearm where the coloration of the entire exterior surface of the device is bright orange or bright green, either singly or in combination."

If you go here you can look at all the legislative history, etc.:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2053&sess=9900&house=B&author=wesson

[grammaton76]

On Halloween, when the costume shops are selling real-looking rifles and pistols, they're doing it illegally. Go to Walmart here and look at the toy guns - they're all green or orange. Go to Walmart in Arizona, and you'll find black toy guns with orange muzzles. Some of the Halloween shops sell very realistic looking fake guns.

If they're doing what many of the higher-end Airsoft shops do, they're not illegal.

If your toy gun accepts barrel attachments (i.e. fake silencer, etc) then you can have the fake silencer painted orange. As long as the guy doesn't run around outside of PRIVATE PROPERTY without the fake silencer on, he's fine.

[maxicon]

If they're doing what many of the higher-end Airsoft shops do, they're not illegal.

If your toy gun accepts barrel attachments (i.e. fake silencer, etc) then you can have the fake silencer painted orange. As long as the guy doesn't run around
outside of PRIVATE PROPERTY without the fake silencer on, he's fine.


I've got kids, and had to spend quite a bit of time researching the toy gun laws to make sure we were legal. The best way to have a realistic looking gun for the kids to run around playing with is to give them airsoft.

Airsoft and paintball are specifically excluded from the "imitation firearms" definition. If it fires a projectile defined below, it can look just like a real gun.

If it doesn't fire a projectile (water gun, cap gun, just plain fake gun), it's only legal if it meets the regulations quoted in my previous post. The law doesn't specify anything about private property.


(c) As used in this section, "imitation firearm" does not include any of the following:
...
(2) A BB device, as defined in subdivision (g) of Section 12001.
...
(g) For purposes of Sections 12551 and 12552, the term "BB device" means any instrument that expels a projectile, such as a BB or a pellet, not exceeding 6 mm caliber, through the force of air pressure, CO2 pressure, or spring action, or any spot marker gun.

[Builder]

My 20 year old daughter wants her AK-47 in hot pink. She has Hello Kitty everything, except cell phone. Hummm, a H K logo on the buttstock would be kinda funny.
Builder

[kap]

My 20 year old daughter wants her AK-47 in hot pink. She has Hello Kitty everything, except cell phone. Hummm, a H K logo on the buttstock would be kinda funny.
Builder
I think every woman wants a pink gun, I know my wife does, but somehow she gets uniquely practical when it comes to firearms and sticks with black.

[sierratangofoxtrotunion]

Group buy of pink furniture? :)
Hm, maybe. My wife's expressed interest in a firearm with pink furniture. She just got a new "razor" cell phone in pink. I'll need to build my OLL (that I still have yet to get, that I still have yet to save enough money for the whole thing, honestly, me and several other guys are gonna all buy our OLLs and build em when we get our tax returns, around March) and have her try it out to decide if she wants to go AR or not.

[grammaton76]

My gf would prefer purple over pink.

[Whitesmoke]

I'm ok with that law...and the tracer law too. Almost everytime we had a live fire exercise (Army) here in CA (camp roberts or Ft hunter Liggett especially...) we started a big fire. Sometimes these fires would burn all night long and we could see the glow in the distance....lol...I remember they would let them just burn themselves out. It was no big deal usually because the grass would burn every year...so it never built up much.

[SemiAutoSam]

They don't look scary enough. The libs cant use it as a ban tactic anymore if they would be Green or Orange.

Imagine DIFI with a Orange AR15 it would make her lose all her steam.

I suppose it would be a bad thing to paint your flash hider bright orange.

[M. Sage]

Only a WAG, but it seems to me there are lots of toy guns made in those colors, so maybe it's supposed to prevent folks from having guns that can be mistaken for/ hidden as toys - sort of the mirror image problem with the realistic looking airsoft orange tipped toy guns being mistaken for real ones???

I guess we could look up the legislative history and know for certain! :)

There's actually code REQUIRING any toy guns that you have out in public (like parks and such) to be either clear or painted in the colors described above.

[blackrazor]

So, just what constitutes the colors "green" and "orange" anyway. Does the law provide the graphs of reflected intensity vs wavelength which define these colors? No? So how are we supposed to know just what wavelengths are officially considred "green" as opposed to, say, "aqua".

I also like that while I can't disguise my guns as toys by painting the barrels green or orange, pink and yellow are just fine. When you want to paint your gun up to look like a toy, just paint the barrel bright pink or yellow, an no one will be the wiser.

[rod]

Because non-firing training guns are bright Orange (sometimes Blue). The Bright Orange plastic guns are used in situation training. So, mentally when you see an Orange looking gun you are going to think that it is training gun and hesitate. If you hesitate in a gun fight, you’re dead. Also, because toy guns are suppose to have an orange tip to let someone know that it is not a real gun. And that gets back to the hesitation issue for law enforcement.

Tracer rounds are band because they have a nasty habit of starting fires.

Clear as Mud?

Yup. I've never seen a green training gun though. Just orange and blue.

[Anthonysmanifesto]

anybody know who seels neon colors furniture for an AR-15?

[DrjonesUSA]

Tracers were banned because there were documented instances of major forest fires being started in the CA wilderness. I can understand that we're a bit unique as a tinderbox.

-Gene


There are also many, many more documented instances of cigarettes and matches causing forest fires, but those aren't banned.

Don't buy into the anti-gun BS.

Gun control is gun control.

[mltrading]

My gf would prefer purple over pink.

Pink/Purple is an excellent combination.

[RANGER295]

The fires are no reason to ban tracers. Maybe restrict where they can be used, but not ban them. They have legitimate uses. When loading mags that had defensive purposes in mind, we used to load the last two rounds as tracers. That way when you saw them you were reaching for a fresh mag before you clicked empty. So much for doing that in CA.

Does anyone know if “preban” non bright color toy guns are still legal to own/use? I grew up in the 1980’s and still have a ton of old toy guns sitting around somewhere. Are they now illegal to keep? If I have kids in a few years would it be illegal to let them play with them?

[shark92651]

anybody know who seels neon colors furniture for an AR-15?

Like this? :D

http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/2779-2/pinkrifles0511.jpg

[M. Sage]

Does anyone know if “preban” non bright color toy guns are still legal to own/use? I grew up in the 1980’s and still have a ton of old toy guns sitting around somewhere. Are they now illegal to keep? If I have kids in a few years would it be illegal to let them play with them?

I don't think the guns themselves are illegal to own or whatever. I think you can't sell 'em commercially, I don't know about "private party" stuff, though.

Just don't get caught carrying it down the street or something. It's not a big thing, IIRC it's a ticket, but don't wanna give the man more of your money and time than you have to.

[aileron]

I saw a really, really cool looking yellow AR-15 type rifle. I guess it was a synthetic lower receiver.

I looked on the internet but cannot find it. Any photos of that baby. It was cool. Wonder if that would insulted the senses of the average joe had they shown that on TV instead of the evil black.

[Scarecrow Repair]

Pink/Purple is an excellent combination.
Guy up here restored a 56 Chevy, I think it was, painted up in gorgeous pink and purple. I never would have thought that combination could look so good.

[hoffmang]

1. Reasonable men can differ on the tracer round ban, but I live in a high fire risk area and I can completely understand the tracer ban here.

2. Yeah... That's the pink AR I want for the missus.

-Gene

[DrjonesUSA]

1. Reasonable men can differ on the tracer round ban, but I live in a high fire risk area and I can completely understand the tracer ban here.




No, they can't.

Again, forest fires are most often caused by humans, either by cigarettes or matches/lighters, yet those are not banned and people would consider you insane if you proposed such a ban. (Well, maybe not in this state...but that ain't saying much.)

A complete ban on tracers makes absolutely no sense if the purpose is to prevent forest fires.

A restriction on where they can be shot makes sense.

[hoffmang]

Then I guess you aren't a reasonable man.

-Gene

[uglygun]

Okay, so is this too much green?

http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/misc/ar10desktop.jpg