Guns aren't toys. This is as non-controversial of a statement as you can make about firearms. From pro-gunner to anti-gunner, we all can agree that guns aren't toys.

Toy guns, however, are toys.

One would see these as two different things. That's because, in most minds, they are.

This creates a bit of an issue for me when I see a report about a 12-year-old Georgia student being charged with having a weapon in school while that "weapon" is described as a "toy gun."

A 12-year-old student in Newton County has been charged with a felony after officials say he brought a toy gun to his middle school.

Officials say the Liberty Middle School student was arrested by Newton County deputies on Monday.

The preteen is charged with possession of a weapon in a school safety zone, a felony. The case will be turned over to the Juvenile Court System.

Now, I can't find any real description of this "toy gun" in any of the news reports Google provided to me when I looked. This is a problem, though, because something doesn't add up.

A toy gun isn't a weapon. It's a toy.

So either it was a toy gun, in which case the term isn't warranted, or it's a weapon and the charges are legitimate, right?

Well, there's a place where it could be both.

Airsoft guns are generally described as toys. They aren't meant to injure people beyond, at most, a bruise. They're not really dangerous in the way we think of weapons, either.

But Georgia law views them differently. 

According to O.C.G.A. § 16-11-127.1, “weapon means and includes any pistol, revolver, or any weapon designed or intended to propel a missile of any kind, or any dirk, bowie knife, switchblade knife, ballistic knife, any other knife having a blade of two or more inches, straight-edge razor, razor blade, spring stick, knuckles, whether made from metal, thermoplastic, wood, or other similar material, blackjack, any bat, club, or other bludgeon-type weapon, or any flailing instrument consisting of two or more rigid parts connected in such a manner as to allow them to swing freely, which may be known as a nun chahka, nun chuck, nunchaku, shuriken, or fighting chain, or any disc, of whatever configuration, having at least two points or pointed blades which is designed to be thrown or propelled and which may be known as a throwing star or oriental dart, or any weapon of like kind, and any stun gun or taser.”

So this is troubling for me, in part because it seems a lot of stuff needs to change here.

One, the media needs to stop calling anything being termed a weapon as being a "toy." They should be more descriptive and actually ask questions to get more specifics so the public understands what's happening here.

On the same token, the state of Georgia needs to slow its roll a bit. While kids bringing airsoft guns to school might be an issue, unless they're threatening people with it, I don't see any real benefit in charging them with felonies over something that isn't likely to hurt anyone.

As it is, we get confusion, parents freaking out because their babies were in danger from something that might shoot their eye out, but isn't likely to even do that.

Everyone needs to do better here.