In 1995 I bought these very realistic plastic toys for one dollar each in the inner city neighborhood where my studio was located. Before painting the guns, I easily removed the orange plastic tips with pliers. These tips were presumably added to distinguish the toys from real guns. How can we expect our children to resolve conflict in a safe and sane way when this is what they play with? Around the same time a youth was shot and killed by police who thought his toy gun was real.