Someone needs to go away for a very long long time

From Spokane, Washington's The Spokesman-Review:

Police raid felon’s hotel room, catch him painting shotgun to look like a toy
Police caught a felon painting a shotgun to look like a toy in a Spokane motel room Monday, according to Spokane Police Department in a news release.

The suspect, Elijah B. Zon, also was in possession of three black-powder guns, methamphetamine, heroin and ammunition.

He was arrested and booked into the Spokane County Jail.

Zon was wanted on an outstanding warrant for possession of a firearm, and police acting on a tip learned he had a weapon, according to the news release. Police entered the room he was renting, at Motel 6 on South Rustle Street, according to the news release.

They found Zon in the middle of painting a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun green and yellow with an orange tip to resemble a toy, according to the news release. Pictures display a shotgun painted on one side.

This is heinous - disguising a real weapon to look like a plastic toy. Tip of the hat to Peter Grant for the link. Peter says it much better than I was going to:

Police officers of my acquaintance have seen the same thing, although not quite so garish or covering so much of the firearm. It's not uncommon for the tip of the barrel of a criminal's gun to be painted orange, so that the weapon resembles an Airsoft toy. You can imagine the advantage this gives the criminal if his residence is raided by the police. Their automatic assumption used to be that a toy gun was precisely that - a toy - and that it presented no threat. They can't assume that any longer.

Similarly, if you're confronted by a young criminal waving something like that shotgun, you can no longer assume it's a toy. It may be a deadly threat. Certainly, if I see something like that, I'm going to take every precaution to safeguard myself and my wife. Tragically, that may expose real kids, with real toys, to real risk . . . but then, criminals don't care about such niceties.

All it takes is for an innocent to be waving a toy getting shot by a careless cop and the gun grabbers get all the ammunition they need. And all that will do is impact the 99.999% law abiding gun owners out there. It will not impact future criminals.