Air gun guideline is a sensible step
ON WEDNESDAY, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly issued a document on compressed air guns, requiring judiciaries nationwide to comprehensively consider the actual damage caused when making judgments in cases involving their use. Southern Metropolis Daily comments:
The document provides an answer to the long debate over domestic judicial standards on guns. According to the standards, if something can shoot metal or other shells at a starting energy density higher than 0.16 joule per square centimeter, it will be considered an imitation gun. If the energy density exceeds 1.8 joule per sq cm, it will be considered a gun.
The standards are so low that a majority of children's toy guns might be considered guns that are illegal for ordinary citizens to possess. From 2011 to 2015, more than 80,000 people nationwide were involved in over 9,000 cases relating to such "guns".
