I’m going to propose to the board an amendment to the firearm policy.
I’ve already run this idea by many board members and they seem to like it.
Problem: We have many cos-players and other people that enjoy working on guns that look like firearms but are disabled or not-a-gun. They need to be able to work on them without issue.
I propose that we we allow replicas at the space provided that they are marked. Any replica or gun that might be confused with a real firearm, will be required to be fitted with a barrel tip that is florescent orange. If anyone marks a real firearm in this way, it will be held as a very serious violation and may result in banning.
I’m working on the proposal now and would like your input on it.
Orange distinguishes from red, which designate fire arms which have been modified to fire only blanks.
When I was at A&M about once a semester somebody would call the cops cause they saw a corps member walking across campus with his m16. They all had red plugs. Usually a fish headed to drill practice.
It would be smart not to define the punishment for violation and instead leave that to board discretion. This way the rule is less likely to be used as a hammer against those that have firearms, by those that feel all firearms are evil.
Also, it might be smart to note a fluorescent open chamber indicator / barrel block will not be considered violating this rule. I often have these in my shooting gear and don’t want someone to claim I was trying to trick DMS because I had it with me or on my firearm. Here is a picture to show you what I’m talking about.
It may be that we shouldn’t allow blaze orange open chamber indicators if they are going to stick out of the tip of the barrel. They seem to make them in many colors.
I get that they offer them in many colors, but the most common color by far is Orange. I just went and checked the ones I have and 6 are orange and 1 is red. I’ll point out, I didn’t go out and buy any of these, instead they were purchased or given to me at different events where they were required.
How about, instead of defining how the replicas should be marked, we just say that we allow working on non-functional replica firearms and cosplay fake weapons. Or better, just remove the verbiage from the rules banning non-functional replica firearms and cosplay fake weapons. As that is the real issue here. We have a poorly worded rule that vastly expand the definition of a firearm when it is not needed.
If I recall, the issue was something like: If you make a slide (or something) for a replica, will it in turn fit/work on a real weapon of the same supposed make/model. And because the answer was YES it is why working on replicas was not allowed. Now if you’re making a cosplay imodium pu-36 space modulator or ray gun I don’t think there is any fear of it going onto a real one. and if it is resin cast it’s probably ok.
The existing rule already exempts “Props, cosplay, or other types of objects that are made to resemble a type of fantasy gun (e.g. Sci-Fi or Steampunk)”. The problem is that there are people who just call anything even remotely gun-like a “replica”.
A member was told that she could not work on a cosplay/prop because it was a “replica”, it looked similar to this:
The firearm rules at the space are probably the most detailed and confusingly written rules we have, it may be easier to re-write them to be more simple/streamlined.
