Mum's fury at son's shooting (From Stroud News and Journal)

Mum's fury at son's shooting

A HORRIFIED mother has spoken of her disbelief at the easy availability of BB guns after her young son came within inches of losing an eye after being shot by another child.

Zac Harris-Price, 9, who lives in Stroud's Bath Road, was hit just below the eye by a plastic pellet fired from a powerful replica gun while playing with friends.

police confiscated the weapon after the incident and had stern words with the 11-year-old who fired it.

"The parents of the boy who fired the gun have surrendered it to police for destruction," said Sgt Andy Stone of Stroud police.

"The lad who was shot could so easily have lost an eye.

"I cannot stress strongly enough that these guns are not toys and parents must not buy them for their children.

"Somebody is going to be blinded by one of these things soon."

Shelley Price, Zac's mother, said she did not blame the boy who had shot her son but could not believe how easy it was to get hold of the BB guns.

"I don't think they should be sold at all," she said.

"It's surprising how powerful they are.

"I wouldn't allow my kids to have them."

Zac was shot last Wednesday afternoon.

"A couple of older kids had their own BB guns and were just shooting them at targets in the garden," said Mrs Price.

"But this little lad actually started shooting at other children.

"He was just taking pot shots at the kids around the estate.

"My son was caught just below the eye on his bottom eyelid.

"If it had gone a little bit higher and hit him in his eyeball we would have ended up in casualty.

"When it happened it was really swollen and his eye was still bloodshot the next day," she said.

She said children, and their parents, needed to be aware these guns were not just toys.

"This just shows how dangerous these guns are," she added.

"It's frightening, eleven year old kids shooting people in the streets."

Alan Tyndall, owner of Stroud's Antics model shop which stocks BB guns, said it was easy to become too emotive about the subject.

"There's no way I can condone an eleven-year-old having a powerful gun and firing it at others" he said.

"Clearly that's totally wrong.

"But there isn't any legislation that covers the sale of these guns and the reason for that is they are not very dangerous," he said.

Antics imposes its own age limit on the sale of the BB guns and will not sell them to anyone under the age of 17.

"Most of these guns are toys and people have far more accidents on scooters and skateboards," said Mr Tyndall.

"While there are guns in society children will play with toy guns."