POLICE have revealed a woman who was shot by armed officers after she appeared to wave a weapon in her garden had been brandishing a toy gun.
As previously reported in the Echo, the 49-year-old was shot in the arm with a baton gun, which fires plastic bullets, to disarm her.
The woman had earlier threatened to harm herself.

Powered by a large spring inside its mostly clear casing, the toy gun used in a shooting incident at Barracks Road Shopping Center in December couldn’t be mistaken for a real firearm in daylight.
However, a judge ruled Thursday that the Charlottesville area’s problem with real guns has made people afraid.

Look-a-like toys or BB guns used to commit crimes always has been rare, and more so following federal laws in the late 1980s and early 1990s that restricted their appearance. But police still get sporadic calls of alleged gun play in neighborhoods, someone pointing a "real" gun out of a car window, or even robbing a bank.

PHOENIX -- Authorities say a Phoenix police officer shot a teen after the suspect simulated pulling out a weapon and pointing it at the officer during a drug bust Friday night. According to Phoenix police Sgt. Tommy Thompson, the 15-year-old male's injuries were not life-threatening.

Police fired a Taser at a man after he walked along one of Darwin's busiest streets allegedly pointing a toy pistol at people. Superintendent Bob Harrison says officers donned protective gear on Mitchell Street yesterday afternoon amid fears the toy might be a real weapon.

DOCTORS yesterday called for a ban on the sale of toy guns, saying they were dangerous for children to play with.
The warning follows an incident in which a seven-year-old Bahraini from Manama accidentally shot himself in the eye when he was playing with one such "weapon" his parents had bought him from a cold store.

Mphumuti Nkambule and his co-accused, were represented by attorney M.S Simelane who told Senior Magistrate David Khumalo that, “the accused persons were not carrying a gun but a toy gun on the day in question,” he said.
Magistrate Khumalo told Simelane that he must mind his words because what he was telling the court was that his clients did committed the crime, however, they were not carrying a genuine firearm but a toy gun.

A fourth grade New Dorp boy faced the prospect of suspension after the principal at his South Beach school saw him playing with an action figure carrying a toy machine gun.
Patrick Timoney, a 9-year-old student at PS 52, and friends were playing with LEGOs during their lunch period when the principal took him into her office over the two-inch toy gun carried by a standard policeman figure.
Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told the Staten Island Advance that there is a no-tolerance policy for toy guns in schools.

A toddler who witnessed his police VIP Protection Unit father shoot and kill his mother, before wounding two men and hijacking three cars, is so traumatised he imitates the attack.
Every now and then the three-year-old boy points his hand at people, pretending to be carrying a gun and shooting, making gunshot sounds, his uncle Bakholise Sokutu said.

Gun Free South Africa in collaboration with Meadowlands Youth Desk and Meadowlands SAPS (Crime Prevention Unit) held an event in the Meadowlands Park on the 06th of November 2009. The goal was to talk to the community about the dangers of gun ownership as well as the promotion of Gun Free Zones and also to encourage the community to act against drug abuse.

According to the South African Police Service over a 1000 children are murdered (many of them by guns) annually and approximately 100 000 children physically or sexually assaulted. (Please be advised this document contains in it images that are not good for sensitive viewers). To read more click here

16th of June is the day which marks 33 years after the youth of Soweto stood up and rebelled against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The Apartheid museum was named after the transition of government in 1994 and still today reminds us of the struggle which Hector Petersen and other youth did for the sake of this country.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com; May 11, 2009

In a few weeks, I will begin a one-year prison sentence for being in the possession of illegal firearms. Where I come from, having a gun is just part of everyday life. But, through this painful process of going to court and being convicted, I realized that I had to make a change.

Gun Free South Africa recently did interviews with people on the ground to find out their stand on gun ownership in general.

A Johannesburg school principal is fighting for his life after he was shot in the neck, allegedly by a parent yesterday.