My son, a gun-lover from an early age, collected airsoft gun replicas. They are very realistic, though they shoot plastic pellets, not bullets, except for their orange tips. Once I was approaching our house at night after walking the dog and found police surrounding our back-up car. A neighbor had reported someone appearing to hide guns in the back seat. After I explained that the “guns” were toys, my son gave the police their introduction to airsoft, showing off his whole collection. They were impressed.
In Monroe County Georgia, a seven-year-old picked up a real revolver thinking it was an airsoft replica, and shot his 12-year-old sister. Fortunately she was wounded but not killed, and a greater tragedy was averted. The pro-Second Amendment website “Bearing Arms” astutely identifies the two breaches in gun safety that led to the episode:
1. Obviously the .22 should have been locked up and out of the reach of any child. Georgia is one of the few states that have a law making irresponsible gun owners legally responsible if a child shoots someone with one of their guns. I’ve written here before that all states should charge parents when this happens.
2. The seven-year-old had apparently not been taught never to point guns at anyone. My father, old soldier that he was, started making the rule clear when I got my first Roy Rogers authentic Western cap pistols. I confess, when playing cowboys (I was always a bad guy, because I had a black hat), I would point my two toy six-shooters at my opponents when in a gun battle, but the message still stuck. Dad also told me never to have my finger on the trigger until I was going to shoot. “That’s what the trigger guard is for,” he said. He complained about TV shows where police or other gun-wielders had their fingers on the trigger almost as often as he complained about “Mexican stand-offs.” “The one who shoots first wins,” he said. “If a so-called ‘stand-off’ lasts more than a second, everyone involved is an idiot.”
There is a third, though “Bearing Arms” disagrees. Airsoft guns should not be so similar to the real weapons that they can be easily confused with them. The article argues—it’s not much of an argument—that the realism is necessary because “they’re used for military simulation games and they kind of need to be realistic to work for that role.” No they don’t. The military simulation games would be just as effective with purple guns that fire pellets. Paintball simulations are effective, and paintball guns look nothing like the real thing.
Ethics Alarms 
The opposite phenomenon is also happening. People are using cerakote to make actual firearms look like Nerf toys.
I have gotten pushback on several firearms sites for stating that this is irresponsible and could get some poor kid using an Nerf dart gun killed.
Come on, don’t ruin it for the kids.
Holy crap!!! That’s FAR beyond irresponsible. It’s bad enough that toy guns look like real firearms. Making real firearms look like toys will get both law enforcement officers (initially) and children (eventually) killed.
What possible justification can there be for something like that?
That is my take on it. The only justification I can get is ‘it looks cool’. Now, I do agree with that, but as adults, we sometimes have to realize that something that might be fun or cool in responsible hands has a downside that is too great to ignore.
My take is that at many of those who create these weapons intend to cause an adversary (e.g., a law enforcement officer) to hesitate long enough to give the bearer of such a weapon a tactical advantage. There may be some (rather juvenile-minded, in my opinion) shooters who do it just for the “cool factor,” but apparently with no regard for the inherent potential for tragedy.
A friend who has a firearms coating business (Cerakote and others) regularly turns down requests for this work.
My gun club voted over a year ago to bar members from shooting such guns on our ranges.
I’ve run into this problem a number of times when propping shows. In order to be a good prop, a gun needs to look accurate – ideally be historically accurate, as well. It also needs to be idiot proof, that is 100% safe, and not break the bank, as props are rarely a show’s top priority. I have also, however, come across multiple directors who insist that the gun have the orange safety cap on the barrel, so as to not make the audience ‘uncomfortable’. Which has odd effects on the Sound of Music, watching Nazis run around with what look like Red Rider pistols in their hands. (Oddly, it tends to be the same directors who tend to be cavalier about fistfights, putting off any combat rehearsal until just before tech week, which gives me fits.) I’ve had directors require me to paint the orange tip onto solid rubber 3d prints, and stop the show because one actor pointed the ‘gun’ directly at another.
I suppose that is a fairly niche market for the product. The avid collectors and players do a good job of keeping the prices down, however.
“…and paintball guns look nothing like the real thing.”
https://www.shopcousins.com/paintball/paintball-guns/tactical-paintball-guns/
Is your opening pic a still from Stand by Me or some other movie? If so, their propmaster should have done a better job, and at least had the seams in the plastic filed off.