Marin County DA Asks State Legislature To Strengthen Laws For Altered Replica Weapons
SAN RAFAEL(KCBS) — Marin County's district attorney said he wants the state to strengthen laws that address people who disguise replica guns and rifles to look like the real ones—an effort resulting from the recent confrontation between sheriff's deputies and a 12-year-old boy.
On Oct. 11, sheriff's deputies confronted a 12-year-boy in Marin City, who was reported to be pointing a handgun at people. Instead they found that he was carrying a replica gun in his pants with the orange safety tip painted black.
District Attorney Ed Berberian said that had the boy pointed the gun at deputies, there could have been a tragic outcome.
"At 11:30 in a darkened parking lot, they would have had to make some very quick decisions on what they were going to do. And one of those decisions may have been that they needed to fire," he said.
Berberian said that the boy didn't commit a crime carrying a replica weapon with a blackened-out safety tip because California law requires law enforcement to prove he altered it himself.
That's why Berberian is asking the Legislature, through Assemblyman Marc Levine, to change state law so that anyone holding or concealing a replica weapon with a black tip can immediately be arrested.
"You don't want to have something like the Andy Lopez case happening here," he said.
Berberian was referring to 13-year-old Andy Lopez was fatally shot by a veteran Sonoma County sheriff's deputy on Oct. 22, 2013 in Santa Rosa. Lopez had been carrying an airsoft gun designed to resemble an AK-47 assault rifle. It did not have an orange tip. Charges were not filed against the deputy.
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Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 199, which was coauthored by Levine. It requires that all airsoft guns to have brightly colored or transparent markings to make them more easily identifiable as imitation firearms. Only replica guns purchased after January 2016 will be affected by the law.