Baltimore Bans BB Guns for Minors

The BB gun is a traditional Christmas gift that always has come wrapped in a certain risk. Now, the toy carries a threat that has nothing to do with putting an eye out: a $500 fine and two months in jail.

It is a misdemeanor in Baltimore to sell or give a BB gun to anyone younger than age 18, under an ordinance adopted by the City Council this month.

In one of America’s most deadly cities, where juvenile homicides are up 50% this year compared with last, officials are fed up with toy guns that look like the real thing.

“We’re dealing with a different element now,” said council President Sheila Dixon. “If you give it to a minor and we trace it back, that person will be fined or charged with a crime.”

Forget the romance of the Red Ryder, the wooden-stock BB rifle designed in 1938 and portrayed as a boy’s to-die-for holiday gift in the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story.” Some of the most popular BB guns these days don’t resemble the guns of the Wild West, but the semiautomatics packed by street thugs.

And instead of playing with the guns -- taking target practice at soda bottles or, at worst, terrorizing squirrels -- some Baltimore residents use them to prey on people, police say.

City police do not track how often BB guns are used to commit crimes, but they say they’re turning up more often in the hands of offenders. The toys are much easier to obtain than real weapons, police say, and won’t result in gun charges in the event of an arrest.

Gun-rights advocates say the city has bigger problems than BBs. They point to recent high-profile crimes -- including a family of seven killed in an October fire police believe was set to punish them for reporting neighborhood drug-dealing -- and call a crackdown on toys silly.