Air Gun — A Deadly Toy?

Abstract

Air guns (air rifles) are used throughout the world as instruments of amusement such as toys in funfairs, for bird hunting and firearms training. In India and in many other countries, this instrument neither comes under the purview of the Arms Act, nor is there is any restriction on the user's age. This enables a person to gain access to this instrument quite easily. Sometimes serious and fatal injuries result when it is used by an ignorant person or by a criminal. There are reports which suggest that these ‘toys’ can cause painful injuries but only a few cases of death have been reported. There is no literature about the features of injuries that help to establish the range of fire by an air gun. Here we report a case where a boy was accidentally shot to death while watching bird shooting. We attempt to correlate the injury with the range of fire.