Well, some guy recently did enter a movie theater with some pepper spray, a hatchet, and an airsoft replica....
And let's not forget just how big "little kiddies" can be: I met one just last night - he's only 12, and he's well over 6 ft. tall. It's easy for us to lay the blame on a police officer for such shootings, but what happens when you, as a legally armed citizen, round that corner on a dark side-street only to see a large male bearing down on you, with what at first glance (and really, is there time for a detailed look, then, particularly in relation to what virtually every firearms/self-defense community has discussed regarding "The Tueller Drill?") seems to be a firearm. Will you -
will I - really have the time or the wherewithal to realize that it's just two pre-teens playing a game of cops-and-robbers in the dark?
We no longer live in that idyllic 1950s small-town America. The last time I looked for a replacement for my Entertech water-pistol at the local big-box store, I came up short because they'd been taken off the market (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertech" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) for just this reason. That happened 30 years ago. I think it's about time people moved-on from the belief that kids can play with seemingly real replicas, with impunity.
Overall, while I think that it's good to make brandishing a replica illegal, in reading
Werz's excellent reply, I think there's definitely room for improvement and refinement.