Amazon, Wal-Mart Settle With New York Over Toy Gun Sales

Retailers including Wal-Mart, Sears and Amazon have agreed to halt the sales of realistic-looking toy guns in New York and pay over $300,000 in penalties, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Monday.

New York has reached a settlement with sellers of toy gun.

“Time and again, these retailers put profits over safety, putting children and police officers at high risk of a tragic encounter”, Schneiderman, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Schneiderman’s workplace discovered that over 6,400 toy weapons bought from 2012 to 2014 violated New York legal guidelines.

With the help of the police department in Rochester, New York, TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen set up an experiment to show just how much of a challenge it is for officers to distinguish a toy gun from a real one when they need to make a split-second decision. Imitation weapons colored other than black, blue, silver or aluminum, and marked with an orange stripe on the front and sides of the barrel are exempted.

The sales by Wal-Mart violated terms of an earlier agreement with the state in 2003 when it was found to sell illegal toy guns. Months later, a Cleveland police officer shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who had a BB gun. Sears also owns Kmart.

“Once the New York attorney general expressed concern with certain items sold at Walmart.com we blocked the shipment of those items into the state”, a Wal-Mart spokesman told the Times.