Can You Tell the Real Gun from the Toy?

Look at the attached photos. Look closely.

Can you tell the real gun from the Airsoft pellet gun? What if you were a police officer confronting a suspect in a dark alley holding one of these?

These two guns – an actual Glock pistol used by some police officers and an Airsoft replica – were displayed at the Albany Police Department's "Safety Palooza" open house Sunday. The Airsoft toy is supposed to have an orange tip on the barrel, but someone had painted over it, explained Officer Chris Beck, who manned the display table.

"In a dark alley, you're not going to know," he said. "That's why they're so dangerous. Kids think they're toys, but they're not."

A label on the display said:

Under Ideal Circumstances –

On average, it takes 3/4 second to perceive a potential threat and another 3/4 second to react to a potential threat.

Could you Perceive, Assess and React to this type of threat in 1.5 seconds?

Could you do it with 100% accuracy?

"If you pull either one of these on us," Beck said, "we're going to have some problems."

"We have a lot of robberies where people an Airsoft gun because it looks like a real gun," he said.

Police do see one value in the Airsoft guns. "Actually, we train with these," Beck added. "It's a kind of non-deadly way of being able to train with guns."

For those wondering which gun is real, it's the one on the lower right in the photo.