Before I respond let me say that I see this whole effort as nothing more than grandstanding and an attempt to play to a specific voting block and nothing more. Also it amuses me that back in the day (1970's and even the 80's) that one of the hallmarks of being conservative was using and discussing issues using logic and leaving emotions out of it. So-called liberals of the day were considered the iirrational, emotional ones when it came to the discussion of issues. Now IMO we've seen a reversal in that so-called conservatives today seem to get trapped into these legislative schemes and tend to go off into tangents of emotional outbursts without really giving thought to the fact that the legislative idea is not only stupid but would likely be overturned in the courts under the violation of the commerce clause.
Now to the response to Big's comments above. I was a kid in the late 50's and into the 60's and I can flatly say that the only thing I even had remotely realistic to a firearm back in the day was a Daniel Boone flintlock type gun made almost completely of wood and no plastic. Yeah I had the coon skin cap too and thought I was cool!
Plastic wasn't around 100 years ago and not much around back in the day. Now in case you want to make me anti gun Big, not only did I have my own firearm at 10 years old (a Glenfield 22. cal) but at 12 I had a 20 gauge shotgun, at 17 a Remington 742 30-06 and I use to do lots of hunting in the rural area that I grew up in. I'll just leave it at that. BTW: on Friday before opening day of deer season, at High School we'd be out in the parking lot with teachers also who are all loaded up to leave afterschool to go hunting and yep we had our deer rifles with us and it wasn't uncommon for us to pull them out and show them off to one another, especially if you had a new gun or scope. At no time was anyone shot, threatened or even felt threatended and I don't even remember anyone doing anything stupid causing a teacher to have to call them out. My how times have changed!
I just think you are getting emotionally worked up over a lot of nothing at the end of the day. Don't get caught up in these schemes as they really are meaningless at the end of the day.
JMO.
And also BTW: I don't let my son have some of these realistic looking guns because as a responsible gun owner, the last thing I want is for him to be confused by what he is handling. I have specific rules with guns and I don't want any mixed signals that might cause him to deviate from those rules.