I talked about war toys. What about toy guns? We played guns a lot when I was a kid. We’d split up into teams and play in the hills, or we’d play in the house: the bad guy would hide upstairs and the good guys would try to sneak up and blast him before he blasted them. Identifying the “winner” was always problematic—“I got you, sucker. You’re toast.” “No way. I got you!”
The funniest thing about The A-Team, of course, was that tens of thousands of bullets were fired, but nobody ever died. Same with the G.I. Joe cartoon. Hardcastle and McCormick (1983 – 1986) was a small scale Mod Squad: A retired judge gets a car thief out of jail under the condition that the car thief helps the judge nail the criminals he was forced to free on technicalities.
Both shows represent a quintessential ’80s narrative: (1) the American legal system is irreparably broken, (2) traditional law enforcement is ineffective and/or corrupt, and (3) justice depends on reluctant-but-righteous vigilantes who live on the fringes of the society they are morally driven to protect.
After a number of fatal shootings, “realistic-looking” toy guns were banned in Los Angeles and New York in 1987. In 1988, Congress passed a law requiring that all toy guns “be identified with a `blaze orange’ tip over the gun’s nozzle.” The law is easily gotten around today.
More on this subject tomorrow.
(Images via eBay)
2 Warps to Neptune 
Toy departments just don’t seem right without the occasional “pop-whine!” of a Trail Rider.
Did you know that there’s actually a specific orange color assigned for that usage? I found it on a spec sheet of some sort, can’t remember where.
Aw, my friends and I played guns all the time, all the way up to 7th Grade. One of my friends had a dad who was a woodworker and had all these cool machining tools and lathes in his garage. He totally hooked him up with a super-realistic looking WWII M3 submachine gun (“grease gun”), made completely out of wood and some metal parts. He was the total envy of the group. I wonder if he still has it…
Yeah, it’s “blaze” or “safety” orange.
Man, we had some crazy realistic guns before the laws took effect. They were heavy, they cocked, they had clips.
Indeed. Found the wiki on Safety Orange here.
“Safety orange is used to set objects apart from their surroundings, particularly in complementary contrast to the azure color of the sky…”
Blaze Orange (Color No.12199) is the shade of orange required by Federal law for the application on the tips of toys guns. Thanks, Wiki! =)