Two men were charged with weapon offences in Townsville on Wednesday for firing a gel blaster at a garage door, forcing a local school into lockdown for 20 minutes. 'In fact, I am informed that a number of people were charged with these offences last month.' 'That being said, there are already current laws in place which carry heavy penalties for anyone who uses any item including toys or replica firearms in a menacing, threatening, or offensive way. In a statement, shopping centre management Charter Hall said, in light of customer concerns, they reviewed the store and the product for sale and asked the casual tenant to vacate.

'But before we start regulating or stigmatising retailers for something they're selling, maybe we should have a deeper conversation about what is it really that we're concerned about, how can we best problem-solve that, so our concerns can be minimised, and safety to the community maximised.' 'This is really about an emotional response that is a legitimate emotional response,' Dr Fay said. There is no regulation on the toys in Western Australia. Gel blasters are currently legal in Queensland and South Australia but are banned in New South Wales and Victoria. The reason they aren't regulated here in Queensland is because they're not seen to be something that can endanger life in their everyday use.' 'But I do think it's important to point out that they are toys. 'In some ways you can understand people's fear if they're not used to seeing or handling firearms - they do look very realistic. 'And I think that fear is not necessarily about the firearm itself but it's really about our emotional response to what we're seeing in society in terms of the misuse of firearms.

People get worried when they see these kinds of things because they can see the potential for their misuse,' Dr Fay said. 'I can understand, especially when we've had something like what we've had in Darwin this week. University of Queensland criminologist Suzanna Fay said the realistic-looking replicas naturally stirred a response in people. 'They sell pretty much the same guns here but it's good now that we have the local store because you can walk in, try out the guns, hold them, and that's the best thing.' 'Emotional response' to firearms Gel blaster player Kobe Weder said it was a great sport and he was excited to have a local store. 'Even though they're replicas, you walk into a shop somewhere with that - I mean what's the first thing you're going to think? You're going to hit the ground.'

Gun websites shut down