What is a Cap Gun?
A cap gun is a toy that creates a sound simulating a gunshot and smoke when it is triggered by a small percussion cap. The caps are usually made from cheap plastic or paper and can be arranged in rings (often called roll caps), a perforated roll of 50, disk caps, or cap strips. The caps also have tiny vents to allow the smoke that is produced on triggering to escape.
A number of people have claimed that cap guns were invented following the end of the American Civil War in a bid by firearms companies to stay in business. While the claim has some merit, it is a misrepresentation of history.
Cap guns were in fact created much earlier than the Civil War, and they are a lot different from regular firearms. There are some similarities between them and real guns, but the main difference is that a cap gun does not fire a projectile. Instead, it uses a small amount of fulminate powder – similar to gunpowder but not quite – that is set off by friction, rather than a spark, to make the noise that resembles a gunshot.
There are many types of cap guns, from single-shot models that use a spring to fire a cap when a trigger is pulled to multi-shot models that can hold multiple caps in a magazine and automatically fire each one as the handle of the gun is pushed forward. The "Golden Age" of cap guns, roughly the 20-year period that followed World War II when television became popular, saw manufacturers such as Nichols Industries, Hubley, Kenton, Kilgore, Wyandotte, Classy, Mattel, and Actoy in the US and companies like Lone Star Toys in the UK making millions of them. Many had their names patterned after a hero or heroine of the west and were often endorsed by leading matinee idols such as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Dale Evans, Marshal Matt Dillon, and countless others.
Despite the differences between cap guns and actual firearms, there have been cases of children being injured by them. One study published in 1999 by The Children's Hospital at Westmead looked at a five-year period of time and reported that there were five boys treated for burns related to toy cap guns. The study found that all the children involved in the injuries were unsupervised at the time they received their burns.
While there are some concerns about the use of toy weapons by children, experts say that parents should not restrict their children's freedom to play with toys, including toy guns. However, it is important for adults to supervise pellet and BB gunplay, and make sure they are never used to harm others. It is also important for parents to teach their children how to safely handle and use these weapons.