Is it real or is it a pellet gun?

COEUR d'ALENE - When the Coeur d'Alene police arrested a man for probation violation outside Rite Aid last Monday, the biggest surprise wasn't his admittance that he had been planning to rob the store.

It was actually the weapon he had tucked in his waistband, said Det. Mark Todd, a piece that resembled a Beretta pistol in every detail.

Pulling back the magazine of the confiscated weapon at the police department this Thursday, Todd revealed what it was: A toy.

With the 6 mm pellet gun's orange cap painted silver, it's only recognizable for what is by the light weight, Todd said.

"With simple modifications, for all comparisons, it's a real gun," he said.

And criminals know it.

Disguising toy weapons is a deception more criminals have been using in recent years, said Christie Wood, Coeur d'Alene police spokeswoman.

"It's an issue," she said. "Many of these people are probably on parole and would never qualify for a handgun, so this is the route they go instead."

The danger, Todd said, isn't in the soft plastic caps shot out of pellet guns, which manufacturers have designed to look so realistic they match real guns completely, except for the embossed warning label and the orange cap required on toys.

The problem is the presumption by civilians and police officers alike that the guns are real.

"They're getting it to the point to make people think they're legitimately armed," Todd said. "If we see a person is armed, we don't have time to have a discussion about if it's an Airsoft pistol."

On Thursday he pointed out the detail on the toy gun from the Rite Aid episode - a tiny orange dot identifying the safety mechanism, and even rifling around the barrel, just like a real gun has.

From a distance, Todd would never be able to tell the difference between a fake and the real deal, he said.

"The distance could be close, too," he said.

In those cases, police could pull their own firearms, Wood said.

Or civilians, she added.

"There are now people in the general public who are packing, who have concealed weapons permits," she said. "If they think they're stumbling across a robbery and see this (pellet gun), they're not going to be able to distinguish it, either."

Although the Coeur d'Alene Police Department doesn't keep track of instances when toy guns are used, Wood said, there have been three incidents in the last six months where suspects were packing toy guns, the orange cap painted over.

Two were successful robberies, one of them involving a suspect who may be behind a series of robberies.

Painted pellet guns have also been found at schools, Wood added.

"To impress," she said.

She acknowledged manufacturers aren't likely to change their methods.

After all, companies already follow federal law by designating toy guns with an orange strip around the barrel, even if it is easily painted over.

There's also nothing to stop the opposite - people painting over real guns with paint to look like toys.

"Some people just want something a little flashier," Wood said of pieces coated in purple or pink.

At the least, she said, parents can be vigilant of their children to ensure they don't disguise their toys.

"We really just want awareness that it's difficult to tell toys and real guns apart," she said. "Ideally we'd like nobody to be packing these (toy guns)."