Throughout the world, with the general exception of the United States, criminals who want firearms will often buy non-firing replicas–toys, essentially–and convert them into firing replicas. It happens here, but most criminals have other ways to get firearms for the most part, so it’s less of a thing.
The thing about toys is that they don’t fire live ammo without modification. If they can, they’re what we like to call “the real f***ing thing.”
Now, in Japan, they often do a lot of weird stuff. Like, I often see stuff from there and ask myself, “Nuked too much? Or not enough?” Needless to say, I’m not a huge anime nerd.
But a story from Vice about a “toy” in certain game machines is weird even by Japan’s standards.
Japan is urgently recalling 16,000 toy pistols after police discovered they can fire real ammunition. The so-called “Real Gimmick Mini Revolver” was handed out as claw machine prizes across the country, but authorities now say these plastic toys function dangerously close to actual firearms.
The toys were imported from China and distributed to 78 companies in 31 prefectures. Marketed for kids 12 and up, the toy comes with eight plastic bullets and looks harmless at first glance. But it features metal or hardened plastic parts and a barrel wide enough to fit live rounds.
Japan’s National Police Agency has warned that anyone in possession of one is holding an illegal weapon and should turn it in immediately.
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The revolver isn’t the only concern. Authorities identified 15 other toy guns with similar capabilities, all Chinese-made and sold through claw machines or online platforms. Some people likely had no idea they were taking home a real threat. Police believe the toys could misfire, send bullets in random directions, or even explode in the user’s hand. The risk is especially high since these were made from cheap materials and not built to handle actual ammunition.
Chinese companies made these? Somehow, I’m not surprised.
I’m firmly of the belief that things like this, as well as full-auto switches made by Chinese firms and exported into the United States, are the result of an effort to attempt to destabilize their rivals from within. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s just all too convenient, especially as this same country that has an extreme amount of control over the industry within the nation, also decries our right to keep and bear arms and pretends that we’re violating human rights by not enacting gun control.
Still, as a kid who collected a lot of junk toys from various vending machines and other games, I never got a gun.
I had plenty of toy guns, of course, and I came up in the days when they could look sort of realistic, but nothing that would ever fire live ammo. Sure, the risk of it exploding in my hands would have sucked, but a real gun? That would have been kind of cool, since I was already enthralled with firearms at the time.
Japan isn’t fond of such things, though. Hell, the US wouldn’t have been thrilled, either.
The Land of the Rising Sun is home to a lot of weird things, but even they aren’t cool with letting kids “win” guns that should be toys, and aren’t.
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