According to a news release on the Catawaba County Sherriff's Office Facebook page, the gun was a Glock 19 pistol painted blue and orange with a Nerf logo. It was found accompanied by a 50-round drum magazine.
The gun was also accompanied by a cover and other plastic paraphernalia to better resemble a toy gun.
It was one of a cache of 20 guns seized during the raid, which consisted of pistols, shotguns and rifles.
According to the Sherriff's Office, the police also seized cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, and approximately $2,300 in cash.
Damien Alonzo Burch, 35, was arrested and charged with felonious possession of cocaine, felonious possession of mushrooms and misdemeanor possession of marijuana.
For Immediate Release: 03/18/2021 Catawba County, NC- Firearm Disguised as Toy Seized During Search Warrant On...
Posted by Catawba County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, March 18, 2021
While surprising and seemingly isolated, the incident is one of several regarding the easy confusion of toy guns and real guns.
On March 11 in Albany, New York, a four-year-old child accidentally fired an art-covered gun he found on the street after mistaking it for a toy. Nobody was harmed and police were able to secure the gun, local CBS affiliate WRGB reported.
Last month, a North Carolina woman was shot dead after one of her children found a gun in the house and fired it, which police said was due to confusing it with a toy gun.
“We understand that children cannot differentiate most of the time between a real gun and a toy gun,” Cornelius Police Capt. Jennifer Thompson said at the time, according to local NBC affiliate WSAV.