Crime-Plagued Mexico Pushes Toy Gun Ban

A bill proposed in Mexico takes aim at the production, sale and use of toy guns to reduce aggression among kids inundated by news of burgeoning drug-violence, the Guardian reports. Despite an earlier ban on realistic replicas, plastic weapons are still easy to find on the streets and used in a third of "armed" robberies in Mexico City.

The bill would offer financial aid to the toymakers to transform plastic weapons factories to manufacture other products. It would also carry significant fines and retail license suspensions for violators. "The cost we will pay as a society will be much higher if we do not do something," it states. With 5,300 drug-related deaths last year, many Mexicans ridicule the measure, and suggest the government focus on real guns first.
(More Mexico stories.)