Mad props
I’m doing repetitive facepalms over ACen’s weapon policy, specifically the prop gun rules. I thought maybe I’d been spoiled by Otakon’s rules, but now that I look, Otakon doesn’t allow anything airsoft or with moving parts, period. We didn’t run into that issue years back with our guns for the Lupin III cosplay, probably because they were cap-gun toys, and we didn’t make a show of the moving triggers or point them at other people when posing for photos.
ACen requires any firearm to have enough unrealistic/fantasy elements to be obviously fake, plus an orange tip. Honestly, though, I feel like having to orange-tip something as crazy fake as, say, BtG’s handguns from Gungrave, seems a little excessive. I just find it strange to be subjecting costume weapons to simple on-sight rules. They rely on casual visual ID, not an examination or documentation, and it’s easy to trick the eyes. (I suppose that might be a fair argument to go ahead and ban all props resembling firearms, though.) If someone really wanted to cause harm at a con, is it realistically expected that they would somehow disguise a real cannon as Seras Victoria’s Harkonnen? Or that they would otherwise bother disguising a real firearm as a fake by painting an orange tip on an actual pistol (I heard a rumor that this has actually been done in real life), when concealing such a weapon would not be very difficult?
I heard that ACen does weapon-checks, though, and issues “pass” tags to allowed weapons, so why the need for everything to be so obvious? I would say hands-on checks are the way to go, because it assures that someone has seen and touched and approved something before it is allowed to be brought into the con space. All other staffers would have to do is ask to see the tag if they questioned an attendee’s prop - no tag, get escorted to inspection, or out of the con space. That would make me feel safer than rules meant to make a gun identifiably fake at 200 paces.
Anyway, all this really means is that if I want to pose as an armed Julia, I will probably have to do it privately and not at the con in general. Now what can I do with my hands?
ACen requires any firearm to have enough unrealistic/fantasy elements to be obviously fake, plus an orange tip. Honestly, though, I feel like having to orange-tip something as crazy fake as, say, BtG’s handguns from Gungrave, seems a little excessive. I just find it strange to be subjecting costume weapons to simple on-sight rules. They rely on casual visual ID, not an examination or documentation, and it’s easy to trick the eyes. (I suppose that might be a fair argument to go ahead and ban all props resembling firearms, though.) If someone really wanted to cause harm at a con, is it realistically expected that they would somehow disguise a real cannon as Seras Victoria’s Harkonnen? Or that they would otherwise bother disguising a real firearm as a fake by painting an orange tip on an actual pistol (I heard a rumor that this has actually been done in real life), when concealing such a weapon would not be very difficult?
I heard that ACen does weapon-checks, though, and issues “pass” tags to allowed weapons, so why the need for everything to be so obvious? I would say hands-on checks are the way to go, because it assures that someone has seen and touched and approved something before it is allowed to be brought into the con space. All other staffers would have to do is ask to see the tag if they questioned an attendee’s prop - no tag, get escorted to inspection, or out of the con space. That would make me feel safer than rules meant to make a gun identifiably fake at 200 paces.
Anyway, all this really means is that if I want to pose as an armed Julia, I will probably have to do it privately and not at the con in general. Now what can I do with my hands?