[Double Naught Spy]

I had to look at the pics really hard to see which end was up on that thing.

Then you must not be very familiar with firearms, but which is it, "hardly recognizable" or your inability?

Note that it took the PD 40 minutes to make that determination because they didn't readily recognize it as a real firearm. How long would it take you or me to determine it was made of plastic? Not 40 minutes, that's fer damn sure.

But they sure as hell readily recognized it as a gun, huh?

Come on. You started this thread to make fun of some poor sap who doesn't know squat about firearms and then created the key feature that it was hardly recognizable to justify making fun of the guy. He recovered what he thought was a gun and called the cops. He did the right thing.

DNS, you quoted the "barnacle encrusted" bit yourself.

I have to agree with jimpeel - I have a hard time thinking a replica gun described as barnacle encrusted would scare anybody with a lick of sense.

I could see them thinking it might have been a disposed-of murder weapon, but I can't see them thinking "this may go off and kill me."

Yep, it has barnacles on it, but I didn't have any trouble recognizing it or its orientation. Did you? However, the issue wasn't if the gun should be scary, but if it could be recognized, which as you see, it is readily recognizable as a gun.

Won't go off? Probably not. How do you know if you are a person who knows nothing of guns? We read about "acciddents" all the time, don't we? We even have long discussions here about the dangers of mishandling of guns, even 'unloaded' guns. We readily are critical of gun owners who don't know the 4 safety rules and critical of gun owners to don't teach their kids, friends, and family the 4 safety rules after one of those folks gets ahold of a gun and has and ND. All this guy knows is that it is a gun and he doesn't want there to be a problem. He isn't right, but that is what he knows.

Heck, we "know" that unloaded guns are dangerous. I don't know how that is possible but God forbid an unloaded gun is pointed at somebody. How is it we have such a fear of unloaded guns? There is no physical way they can discharge a bullet from them if the cartridge isn't even in the gun, can they? Yet, and unloaded gun is considered as dangerous as a loaded gun. We have even had discussions about people being hurt with "unloaded" guns. How did they get hurt? The person with the gun did not understand the situation. The fisherman didn't either. So he called someone who (eventually) would.

Sheep....... Afraid of everything...

Scary, how? Nobody's getting murdered with it anymore.

You can call them sheeple and afraid, but you can also thank Eddie the Eagle of the NRA for helping promote the sense that guns are dangerous and making non-gun people that much more afraid of them. After all, his teachings indicate....

If you see a gun:

STOP!
Don’t Touch.
Leave the Area.
Tell an Adult.

The Eddie Eagle Program has no agenda other than accident prevention – ensuring that children stay safe should they encounter a gun.

http://www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/

Guns are SO dangerous according to Eddie the Eagle that you need to leave the area or there could be an "accident." It isn't good enough to not touch one, but you can't be anywhere near it.

And who do you tell if you are an adult? The cops tell you to call them if you find a gun.

The only thing out of propportion in the story is that event made the paper. It was a non-story before the cops left the scene.