In the Fall of 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was at the Cudell Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio, playing with a toy gun. Someone called the police on the young boy, reportedly telling dispatch that the firearm they saw Tamir with was "probably fake," but when 26-year-old officer Timothy Loehmann arrived at the scene, within seconds he opened fire on Tamir, killing him instantly. The shooting was deemed justifiable by the FBI and the officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.
A new report about a Utah company, Culper Precision, producing Glock 9, named "Block 9," that comes with a case that can be built out of Legos has once again reignited conversations about Tamir Rice and his tragic death. While this $600 Lego gun kit is colorful enough for people to recognize as being toy-like, 50 Cent chimed in to say that he doesn't believe this should be distributed.
"[Eyeball emoji] This looks like they are trying to market guns to the kids," Fif wrote in the caption to a deleted post. "This is not ok cops will start shooting little kids playing in the park." People took to social media with concerns, including those who questioned what would happen if the lego case was being used as a toy by children who didn't know an actual gun was inside.
People weren't happy with guns being marketed to children, especially in the wake of continuous mass and school shootings in America. Culper Precision reportedly unveiled the design last month and described the toy gun as "one of those childhood dreams coming to life, the Block 19 prototype, yes you can actually build Legos onto it."
According to NPR, the backlash has caused the company to halt sales of the gun kit following conversations with Lego. However, the company used the controversy to call out their "haters" as they addressed the "millions of angry freedom hating people out there who wish to exercise their first amendment rights." They added, "Here at Culper we believe this makes a clear statements out the state of the gun debate and the sad reality of communication issues that run deep in this country."
Check it out below.