Confirmed: Boy shot to death by Sonoma sheriff's deputy had obviously broken toy gun

By Bob Owens | 2:30 PM | October 24, 2013

“One of the deputies described that as the subject was turning toward him the barrel of the assault rifle was rising up and turning in his direction. The deputy feared for his safety, the safety of his partner, and the safety of the community members in the area,” the statement said.

That’s a nice trick for the boy to pull off, deputy, since the toy gun was missing half its barrel, along with its entire front sight assembly.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun. He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.