October 15, 1994
By Stephanie Strom
By Stephanie Strom
Six years ago, (click here) Toys "R" Us pulled realistic toy guns from its shelves after the police in Memphis shot and killed a 10-year-old boy who was carrying a toy gun they mistook for a Colt automatic.
Congress then mandated that toy makers decorate toy guns with blinding neon colors to label them as fakes. But as real guns have flooded the streets, children in fear for their lives began painting their toys to look more realistic.
Yesterday, responding to a recent fatal shooting in Brooklyn that was chillingly similar to the one in Memphis, Toys "R" Us, the nation's biggest toy retailer, announced that it would stop selling any toy gun that could be modified to look like the real thing.
The move follows similar actions by other big retailers, including Sears, Roebuck and Target, which halted sales of toy guns years ago.
Kmart decided this year not to buy any more realistic toy guns from its suppliers, and Kay-Bee Toys, which has 1,000 stores around the country, said yesterday that it was destroying all realistic toy guns. Some chains, including Bradlees Inc., a Northeast discount chain, said they would also eliminate such guns.
The retailers' action is likely to rekindle a debate about selling toy guns at all. In Brooklyn, the brightly colored grip on the toy gun that belonged to Nicholas Heyward, the 13-year-old who was slain, failed to prevent an officer from mistaking it for a real gun and shooting the boy in the stomach on Sept. 27.
Suzanne Schwartz, who owns Uncle Futz, a toy store in Manhattan that carries no guns, said, "If even the bright-colored guns are leading to violence, then I think everything may have to come off the market."...
