Cops Find Real Loaded Gun Disguised as a Kids' Toy Gun During Drug Raid

A drug raid in North Carolina turned up narcotics, cash and a stash of firearms, but one item stood out from the rest. Investigators found a fully working Glock 19 pistol that had been painted blue and orange and marked with a logo designed to look like a Nerf toy gun.

Officers from the Catawba County Sheriff's Office, along with the Hickory and Newton police departments, carried out the search warrant at a home after gathering evidence of drug activity there. Inside, they say they recovered cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, close to $2,300 in cash, and 20 firearms including pistols, rifles and shotguns.

Among them was the disguised Glock, fitted with a 50-round drum magazine and repainted to closely match the colour scheme used on real Nerf toys. Officers said the resemblance was close enough that it would be hard to tell it apart from a genuine toy at first glance.

Owning a gun altered this way is not illegal on its own. But police said the disguise itself was worrying. The Catawba County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that firearms of this type, while not illegal to possess, are concerning to law enforcement, and that guns are commonly seized during searches involving large quantities of drugs.

The man arrested, 35 year old Damien Alonzo Burch, was charged with felonious possession of cocaine, felonious possession of mushrooms and misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was later released on bail while the case proceeds through court.

Toy-like firearms have caused problems for police before. In a separate case in Lakewood, Colorado, officers held a woman and her boyfriend at gunpoint after a dispatcher wrongly reported that someone in their car had threatened a store employee with a weapon. It later turned out to be a child playing with a toy gun. No such incident happened in the North Carolina case, but it highlighted the same underlying risk, a real weapon that looks harmless enough to be mistaken for a toy.