A new California law will require airsoft guns to add features that will distinguish them from the real thing.

In September of 2014 Governor Brown signed into law SB199 which will regulate airsoft guns and other imitations to give them distinctive features that would distinguish them as toys instead of real firearms.

This law goes into effect in two days. So how will airsoft guns look with the provisions starting in two days?Jerry Ross, owner of Gorilla Airsoft and Paintball said “ very colorful.”

“The trigger guard must be colored; we still must have the federal orange tip and then a choice of three different markings either a one inch adhesive band on the stock, the pistol grip or the magazine,” said Ross.  

In the past few years a series of police-involved shootings have occurred where law enforcement mistook toy guns for the real thing. Like the case in 2013 where a 13-year-old boy from Santa Rosa, California was fatally shot by police because he was carrying a BB gun that looked like an AK-47 assault rifle.

Only time will tell if the new regulations on replica firearms will prevent deadly mistakes. The new changes begin Friday.