There is no such thing as an "obvious" toy gun. These are old stats but do show that too many kids are killed by guns, yes the police appeared to be heavy handed when they dealt with the 12 year olds (they are old enough to know what they were playing with) only a fool would wait until they found out if they were real or toy guns. Trust me, I'm a police man! There are a few bad apples everywhere! In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the latest national data released in 2002. That is one child every three hours; eight children every day; and more than 50 children every week. And every year, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries. American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States.