Law and Safety for a Realistic MP7 Light Gun

3.1 Why a light gun needs a legal volume at all

A light gun built into a licensed airsoft MP7 looks, at a few metres, exactly like a real H&K MP7. It fires nothing. That combination — realistic, harmless, and carried between a workbench, a games room and perhaps a friend’s house — is precisely what imitation-firearm law is written for. This volume covers only what is specific to an MP7 donor: the federal marking rule, how it interacts with a camera at the muzzle, and the hazards of the strip-down. Because the build is in Michigan, this volume also reads Michigan’s statutes and two of its city ordinances as they apply to this one object, and sets out a transport and storage rule (§§ 3.6–3.9). Other states, shipping kits and the general treatment of imitation-firearm law belong to the planned Imitation Firearm Law dive; the trademark and licence questions for anyone who might one day sell a kit belong to Licensing, IP and Kits. Nothing here is legal advice.

3.2 The statute, in its own words

The federal rule is 15 U.S.C. § 5001. Its operative part:

(a) Acts prohibited. It shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture, enter into commerce, ship, transport, or receive any toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm unless such firearm contains, or has affixed to it, a marking approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as provided in subsection (b).

(b)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) or (3), each toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm shall have as an integral part, permanently affixed, a blaze orange plug inserted in the barrel of such toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm. Such plug shall be recessed no more than 6 millimeters from the muzzle end of the barrel of such firearm.¹

Paragraph (b)(2) lets the regulator approve alternative markings and waive the requirement for guns “that will only be used in the theatrical, movie or television industry”; (b)(3) lets it adjust the marking system. The definition that decides whether an airsoft MP7 is covered is subsection (c):

(c) “Look-alike firearm” defined. For purposes of this section, the term “look-alike firearm” means any imitation of any original firearm which was manufactured, designed, and produced since 1898, including and limited to toy guns, water guns, replica nonguns, and air-soft guns firing nonmetallic projectiles. Such term does not include any look-alike, nonfiring, collector replica of an antique firearm developed prior to 1898, or traditional B-B, paint-ball, or pellet-firing air guns that expel a projectile through the force of air pressure.¹

Subsection (g) makes the federal marking rule supersede inconsistent state marking requirements, while barring states from prohibiting the sale of pre-1898 collector replicas and of traditional BB, paintball and pellet guns other than to minors.¹ It does not stop a state regulating look-alike guns in other ways.

Two points in that text are worth reading slowly.

• Airsoft is named inside the definition, and the air-gun exclusion does not reach it. “Air-soft guns firing nonmetallic projectiles” are expressly look-alike firearms; the exclusion is for “traditional B-B, paint-ball, or pellet-firing air guns”. That is why the H&K MP7 .177 pellet rifle in Volume 1 is a different legal object from the airsoft MP7s, quite apart from being useless as a donor.
• The prohibited acts are not limited to selling. The list is “manufacture, enter into commerce, ship, transport, or receive”, applying to “any person”. The implementing regulation states its applicability in terms of devices “produced or entered into commerce on or after May 5, 1989”², and the E-11 dive’s legal volume reads § 5001 as a commerce statute that does not reach a builder’s personal manufacture. That reading may be right in practice, but it is a reading: the statute’s text does not say so. Two corrections to the E-11 volume’s summary were also found while writing this one and are recorded in this dive’s notes for the controlling session, the most important being that the plug must be recessed no more than 6 mm from the muzzle, not be “not less than 6 mm” thick.

3.3 The four approved markings

The approved markings are in the regulation issued under § 5001. It was the Commerce Department’s 15 C.F.R. part 272 until the Consumer Product Safety Commission adopted it, unchanged in wording, as 16 C.F.R. part 1272 (2023); Commerce removed the old part on 19 February 2026 (Imitation Firearm Law, Volume 1). (Corrected 2026-10-20; this volume first cited part 272 as current. Corrected 2026-10-24: the colour standard in (a) is now AMS STD 595A-17 colour 12199, not the cancelled Fed-Std-595B; the colour itself is unchanged.) Section 1272.3 allows any one of four:³

• (a) “A blaze orange (AMS STD 595A-17 color 12199) or orange color brighter than that specified by the AMS standard color number, solid plug permanently affixed to the muzzle end of the barrel as an integral part of the entire device and recessed no more than 6 millimeters from the muzzle end of the barrel.”
• (b) A blaze orange or brighter marking “permanently affixed to the exterior surface of the barrel, covering the circumference of the barrel from the muzzle end for a depth of at least 6 millimeters.”
• (c) “Construction of the device entirely of transparent or translucent materials which permits unmistakable observation of the device’s complete contents.”
• (d) Overall colouring in white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink or bright purple, alone or as the predominant colour.

The orange flash hider that US airsoft MP7s ship with is an option (b) marking in practice: an orange part covering the barrel’s circumference at the muzzle. Airsoft GI’s listing for the VFC electric warns buyers not to remove the “pinned orange flash hider”.⁴

3.4 Does it still apply once the gun no longer fires?

A donor stripped of its gas system or gearbox stops being an “air-soft gun firing nonmetallic projectiles”. It does not stop being a look-alike firearm: the definition also includes “replica nonguns”, and a gun-shaped object that fires nothing is exactly that. A light gun in an MP7 shell is a replica nongun with a USB cable. Whatever applied to the airsoft gun applies to the light gun.

3.5 Keeping the marking and the camera

Option (a), the plug in the bore, and the camera are incompatible: the lens has to look out of the muzzle (Volume 2). Option (b) is not. The practical answer for this build is to keep an orange band at the muzzle, on the outside:

• If the camera mounts in a sleeve that replaces the flash hider, make the front of that sleeve blaze orange for at least 6 mm, all the way round. Printed in orange filament, the sleeve itself is the marking, provided the colour is at least as bright as the federal standard. “Permanently affixed” argues for a sleeve that is bonded or pinned rather than one that unscrews.
• Do not throw away the factory orange flash hider. It is the reference for colour and, if the camera ends up mounted elsewhere, it goes back on.

Removing the orange marking from an airsoft gun is a common practice and, depending on the state and on whether § 5001’s “transport” reaches it, may or may not be lawful. In Grand Rapids, merely possessing an imitation firearm with its marking removed is a city offence (§ 3.7). The conservative course costs nothing here, because the orange band and the camera can coexist.

3.6 Michigan: what the statutes say

The build is in Michigan, so Michigan is the state this volume reads. Every section below was read on the Michigan Legislature’s own site on 2026-10-18, when its compilation stood at “Complete Through PA 103 of 2026”.⁵ Nothing here is legal advice, and a court could read any of it differently.

3.6.1 There is no Michigan imitation-firearm statute

No section of the Michigan Compiled Laws regulates toy, look-alike or imitation firearms as such. The Legislature has tried at least five times and never finished: House Bill 4844 of 2005 and House Bill 4892 of 2007 (altering an imitation firearm), Senate Bills 779–781 of 2011 (removing the orange marking, brandishing an imitation), whose last action was “placed on order of third reading” on 2012-02-15,⁶ House Bills 6003–6004 of 2016 (possessing an imitation in a public place, brandishing one), and Senate Bill 1135 of 2024, which died in committee with its session. No bill on the subject was found in the 2025–2026 session, though that search was not exhaustive. The section numbers sometimes quoted for a Michigan “look-alike” law do not exist: there is no MCL 750.243e, and MCL 750.243 is a fireworks section repealed in 1968. MCL 750.224, also sometimes cited, bans machine guns, silencers, blackjacks and gas weapons; it says nothing about replicas.

3.6.2 What the donor is, and what the light gun is, in Michigan’s definitions

Two definitions decide almost everything:

“Firearm” means any weapon which will, is designed to, or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by action of an explosive.⁷

“Pneumatic gun” means any implement, designed as a gun, that will expel a BB or pellet by spring, gas, or air.⁸

An airsoft MP7, gas or electric or spring, expels a plastic BB by gas, air or spring. The pneumatic-gun definition does not say “metallic”, and the vehicle sections quoted below add “metallic” when they mean it, so the donor as bought reads as a pneumatic gun under Michigan law. That is an inference from the text; no court decision on airsoft was read.

The finished light gun expels nothing. It is not a firearm and, once the gas system or gearbox is out, it is not a pneumatic gun either, because it no longer “will expel a BB or pellet”. In Michigan’s statute book it is simply an object shaped like a gun.

3.6.3 The statutes that do and do not reach it

Table 1 — The statutes that do and do not reach it

MCL	What it covers	Reaches the airsoft donor?	Reaches the light gun?
750.234e	Brandishing “a firearm in public”; misdemeanor, 90 days / $100	No (firearm only)	No
750.233	Pointing “a firearm” at another without malice; 93 days / $500	No	No
750.226	Going armed “with intent to use the same unlawfully against the person of another” with a firearm, “a pneumatic gun”, or “any other dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument”; 5-year felony	Yes	Unclear: only if a replica is a “dangerous or deadly … instrument”
750.529(1)(b)	Armed robbery: possessing “an article used or fashioned in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to believe the article is a dangerous weapon”	Yes	Yes — this is the one statute written for look-alikes
750.82	Felonious assault with “a gun, revolver, pistol … or other dangerous weapon”; 4-year felony	Unclear	Unclear — no Michigan decision on a replica was found
750.227c / 750.227d	Vehicles: loaded long guns; pneumatic guns firing “a metallic BB or metallic pellet greater than .177 caliber”	No (plastic 6 mm BB)	No
750.234d, 750.234f	Firearm-free premises; under-18 firearm possession in public	No	No
750.237a	Weapon-free school zones: possessing “a weapon”; “‘Weapon’ includes, but is not limited to, a pneumatic gun”	Yes	Unclear: “weapon” is otherwise undefined

The pattern is plain. Michigan’s firearm statutes do not touch a replica, and the vehicle-transport rules do not touch even the airsoft donor, because airsoft BBs are plastic. What remains is conduct law. Using a gun-shaped object to rob someone is armed robbery whatever the object is: 750.529 says so outright.⁹ Whether pointing one at someone is felonious assault depends on whether a replica is a “dangerous weapon”, which no Michigan decision found for this volume settles; no builder should want to be the test case. Brandishing in the statutory sense (“to point, wave about, or display in a threatening manner with the intent to induce fear in another person”)⁷ needs intent, but a realistic MP7 seen through a car window needs none to cause a 911 call.

The school-zone section is the one place where possession alone is an offence, and it is drawn to reach more than firearms: an individual “who possesses a weapon in a weapon free school zone is guilty of a misdemeanor”, on school property and in school vehicles.¹⁰ Whether a non-firing replica is a “weapon” there is not settled by the text. The airsoft donor plainly is one. Michigan’s school code defines “dangerous weapon” for pupils narrowly (firearm, dagger, dirk, stiletto, knife over 3 inches, mechanical pocket knife, iron bar, brass knuckles),¹¹ but district policies commonly go further. The rule that follows needs no lawyer: the gun never goes onto school property, in either form.

3.6.4 Preemption, and why conversion changes it

Michigan forbids its cities, villages, townships and counties to regulate “the ownership, registration, purchase, sale, transfer, transportation, or possession of pistols, other firearms, or pneumatic guns”, except as state or federal law allows.¹² Local units may still regulate conduct that is already a state crime, require supervision of under-16s with pneumatic guns (but not on private property with the parent’s and the owner’s authority), and ban brandishing a pneumatic gun.¹³

That protection follows the definitions. A non-firing replica is neither a firearm nor a pneumatic gun, so preemption does not cover it, and a city may regulate it however it likes. Stripping the airsoft MP7 moves it out of the class the state has reserved to itself and into the class every city can legislate on. Michigan cities have done exactly that.

3.7 Michigan cities: Grand Rapids and others

Grand Rapids repealed and replaced Chapter 153 (“Weapons”) of its city code in December 2019, effective 2020-04-01, expressly to cover imitation firearms.¹⁴ The text below is from the October 2019 draft as published by WOOD TV;¹⁵ the adopted ordinance was amended before the vote (see the penalty) and its codified text on Municode could not be read for this volume, so the section numbers and wording are the draft’s.

“Imitation firearm” means any toy, imitation, facsimile or imitation pistol, revolver, shotgun, rifle, air rifle, BB gun, pellet gun, machine gun, or other similarly simulated weapon which because of its color, size, shape, or other characteristics, can reasonably be perceived to be a real firearm or pneumatic gun. (draft § 9.172(9))

A converted MP7 is squarely inside that. The operative rules:

• “No person shall knowingly display or expose any imitation firearm in a public place” (§ 9.176(1)), where a public place includes “any place of business open to the public” and “any other place which is open to public view” (§ 9.172(8)). Brandishing one is barred separately (§ 9.176(2)), as is furnishing one to anyone under 18 (§ 9.176(4)).
• The display rule does not apply to an imitation that “has a blaze orange tip or other approved marking as described in 15 USC § 5001, 15 CFR 272 … and the blaze orange tip or marking is not concealed” (§ 9.176(5)(a)), nor to one “displayed on a wall plaque or in a presentation case” (§ 9.176(5)(g)), nor to theatrical, sporting, ceremonial and museum uses.
• “No person shall knowingly possess an imitation firearm on which the blaze orange tip or other approved markings … has been altered, removed or obscured” (§ 9.177(2)). This one is about possession, not display: an MP7 with its orange removed is an offence inside the city even indoors.
• Penalty: as adopted, a first imitation-weapon violation is a civil infraction with a $500 fine, and later ones a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine, 90 days in jail or both.¹⁴

The federal statute’s own preemption clause allows this. Section 5001(g) supersedes state or local laws “which provide for markings or identification inconsistent with” the federal rule;¹ a city that requires the federal marking, as Grand Rapids does, is consistent with it.

Ypsilanti defines a “replica or facsimile of a firearm” to include “toy guns, movie or stage props, starter pistols, inoperative firearms, models, replicas or any other device designed or used to imitate a firearm” that is “a substantial duplication of an actual firearm” (City Code § 74-126, as amended 2024).¹⁶ The same 2024 ordinance removed air pistols and air rifles from the city’s weapon definition “to bring the section into compliance with Michigan State law, MCL 123.1102” — the city reading preemption exactly as above, covering air guns but not replicas. The section that uses the replica definition was not read for this volume.

Other cities were not surveyed. Two found by a short search is enough to set the rule: outside the home, assume the city has an imitation-firearm ordinance until its code says otherwise, and assume an unmarked replica is the thing it targets.

Ovid, in Clinton County, is the one city that matters for this build: the gun is used there and only there, indoors, for gaming. Its Code of Ordinances (codified through Ordinance No. 149, July 2025) was read for this volume on 2026-10-19, and it is simpler than Grand Rapids’. A search of the whole code finds no ordinance on imitation, replica or facsimile firearms.¹⁷ The one section that touches guns is § 20-213, “Firearms”, and it is a discharge ban: no person may “discharge any firearm” in the city except a police officer on duty, in defence of life and property, or on a range the city council has approved. Its definition of a firearm is wide, “any weapon or device from which is propelled any missile, projectile, bullet, shot, pellet or other mass by means of explosives, compressed air or gas or by means of springs”, so on its words it reaches the airsoft donor before conversion. State law trims it. MCL 123.1104(b) lets a city ban the discharge of pneumatic guns only where an area is “so heavily populated as to make that conduct dangerous”, and says such an ordinance “shall not prohibit” it on an approved range or “on or within private property with the permission of the owner or possessor of that property if conducted with reasonable care to prevent a projectile from crossing the bounds of the property”. Ovid’s section dates from 1976 and has no such carve-out written in. The practical reading: test-firing the donor indoors at home, into a trap, is protected by the state statute; firing it outdoors where a BB could leave the lot is what the city can reach. Simpler still, the donor does not need to fire a BB at all for this build. The finished light gun propels nothing and is outside the section. Ovid’s code has no public-display rule for replicas either, so the rules below are a house rule there, not a legal requirement; they still matter on any trip outside the city.

3.8 What changes once it is a light gun

Putting the threads together, for the same object before and after conversion:

Table 2 — Putting the threads together, for the same object before and after conversion

	Airsoft MP7 as bought	MP7 light gun (no projectile)
Federal § 5001	”Air-soft gun firing nonmetallic projectiles”: must carry an approved marking in manufacture, commerce, shipping, transport and receipt	”Replica nongun”: still a look-alike firearm; same marking rule (§ 3.4)
Michigan category	Pneumatic gun (inference)	Neither firearm nor pneumatic gun
State preemption	Covered: cities may not regulate possession or transport	Not covered: cities may regulate freely
Vehicle rules (750.227c/d)	Do not apply (plastic BBs)	Do not apply
School zones (750.237a)	A “weapon” by definition	Unclear; treat as a weapon
Robbery, assault, going armed	Apply	Apply (750.529 expressly)
Grand Rapids § 9.176–9.177	Excluded (pneumatic guns are carved out of “imitation firearm”)	Included: no public display unless the orange marking shows; no possession with the marking removed

The light gun is, legally, a lesser object than the airsoft gun in every statute but one kind: the city ordinance written for fake guns. The orange band at the muzzle (§ 3.5) is what keeps the build lawful under the Grand Rapids pattern, which is one more reason never to drop it.

3.9 Transport and storage: the practical rule

No Michigan statute requires casing a replica in a vehicle; the casing rules in 750.227d reach only firearms and larger-calibre metallic air guns. The rule below is therefore a house rule, and I have adopted it as the rule for this build. It is set conservatively because the real risk is not a citation but somebody calling the police about a person with an MP7.

1. Keep the orange marking on, and visible. An orange band at least 6 mm deep around the muzzle (§ 3.5). It is what the federal rule asks for, it is the exemption in the Grand Rapids pattern, and it is what tells a police officer at a glance that this is not an MP7.
2. Travel cased, closed and out of sight. A soft case or a plain box rather than a rifle case if possible, in the trunk or behind the rear seat, never on a seat or in a window. Unloaded is automatic: there is nothing to load.
3. Never in public view. Not carried from car to door uncased, not on a porch or in a window, not in a garage with the door up. “Public place” in the Grand Rapids draft includes anywhere “open to public view”.
4. Never onto school property, in either form, including in the car at pick-up.
5. At home, stored like the real thing. Out of sight of windows, in its case or on a wall plaque. The Grand Rapids exemptions for a “presentation case” and a “wall plaque” fit a display gun exactly.
6. The airsoft donor before conversion is a pneumatic gun. Until the gas system or gearbox is out, it is under every pneumatic-gun rule: local under-16 supervision ordinances (MCL 123.1103(c)) and the school-zone section included. The removed firing parts stay at home, labelled (§ 3.10). Both of the builders here are adults, so the under-16 rule matters only if a younger player handles the donor. In Ovid, never fire it outdoors (§ 20-213, above).
7. Before taking it anywhere new, read that city’s code for “imitation”, “replica” or “facsimile”. A friend’s house in another town is another code.
8. If stopped, say what it is first. “It’s a video-game controller shaped like a gun, it’s in the case”, before reaching for anything.

3.10 Bench safety while stripping the donor

Gas donors. The magazine stores liquefied propellant, flammable in the case of green gas and propane, at a pressure that rises with temperature; the Airsoft Gas dive covers the gases and their storage.¹⁸ Empty a gas magazine completely, outdoors and away from any ignition source, before opening it or removing its valve, and follow the gun’s own manual for venting it. A magazine that is to become a battery box must never be refilled; once the valve is out, glue or plug the fill port so that nobody mistakes the magazine for a working one.

Electric donors. Remove the battery first. The mechbox’s spring can be left under compression (the Tokyo Marui teardown in Volume 2 found one stuck in the cocked position), and small springs leave a compact mechbox at speed when it is opened: eye protection, and open it inside a clear bag or a box. Since the mechbox is not going back in, it can be removed whole and stored without opening it at all.

Both. Wear eye protection while any spring is under load. Keep the removed BB-firing parts together and labelled; a reassembled donor is again an airsoft gun, with everything that implies. And because the finished light gun has a solenoid in it, the electrical hazards — supply voltage, pulse current, heat, and a LiPo inside a closed shell later on — are the business of the Solenoid Recoil, Power Supplies and LiPo Batteries dives.

3.11 What could not be verified

• Whether § 5001’s “manufacture” and “transport” reach a hobbyist who builds a light gun at home and carries it to a friend’s house. No case or agency statement on the point was found; the regulation’s applicability text and the E-11 volume both point toward commerce, the statute’s text is broader.
• The full text of 16 C.F.R. §§ 1272.1 and 1272.2 (formerly 15 C.F.R. §§ 272.1 and 272.2), which could be read only in part (272.1’s exclusions for collector replicas, traditional air guns, and miniatures no larger than 38 mm by 70 mm; 272.2’s opening prohibition).
• Whether a non-firing replica is a “dangerous weapon” or a “weapon” under MCL 750.82 (felonious assault), 750.226 and 750.227 (going armed, concealed carry) or 750.237a (school zones). The statutes do not define it for this case and no Michigan decision on a replica was found.
• That an airsoft gun is a “pneumatic gun” in Michigan is read from the definition’s text (no “metallic” qualifier); no case or Attorney General opinion was read.
• The adopted Grand Rapids ordinance. Its wording here is the October 2019 draft; the codified Chapter 153 on Municode refused the reader. The adopted penalty (civil infraction first) is from news coverage of the vote.
• Ypsilanti’s operative section, and every other Michigan city’s code. Only two cities were checked.
• The 2025–2026 legislative session was searched for imitation-firearm bills, not exhaustively.

Sources

Footnotes

1. 15 U.S.C. § 5001, text via Cornell Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/5001, accessed 2026-10-18. Subsections (a), (b), (c) and (g) quoted or paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. 15 C.F.R. § 272.1 (removed 2026-02-19; now 16 C.F.R. § 1272.1, same wording), “Applicability”, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/272.1, accessed 2026-10-18 (read in summary; full text not quoted). Authority line for part 272: “Section 4 of the Federal Energy Management Improvement Act of 1988, 15 U.S.C. 5001.” ↩

3. 16 C.F.R. § 1272.3, “Approved markings”, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1272.3, accessed 2026-10-24 (formerly 15 C.F.R. § 272.3, removed 2026-02-19; same wording except that the colour reference is now AMS STD 595A-17 colour 12199 in place of Fed-Std-595B 12199). ↩

4. Airsoft GI, “Elite Force H&K MP7 AEG Airsoft SMG by VFC (Black)”, HK-2262070, https://www.airsoftgi.com/product/Elite-Force-HK-MP7-AEG-Airsoft-SMG-BY-VFC-Black-39731/, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

5. Michigan Legislature, Michigan Compiled Laws, https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-750-222 (and the same URL pattern for every section cited), accessed 2026-10-18; page banner “Michigan Compiled Laws Complete Through PA 103 of 2026”. Sections read: 123.1101–123.1105; 750.82, 750.222, 750.224, 750.226, 750.227, 750.227c, 750.227d, 750.233, 750.234d, 750.234e, 750.234f, 750.237a, 750.243, 750.529; 380.1313. ↩

6. Michigan Legislature, 2011 Senate Bill 779, bill history, https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Bills/Bill?ObjectName=2011-SB-0779, accessed 2026-10-18. Other bills: 2005 HB 4844 and 2016 HB 6003 (legislature.mi.gov introduced-bill texts), 2024 SB 1135 (https://michiganvotes.org/legislation/2024/senate/bill-1135), all accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

7. MCL 750.222(c) (“brandish”) and (e) (“firearm”), history to 2015 PA 26 and 28, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩²

8. MCL 123.1101(d), 1990 PA 319 as amended by 2015 PA 29, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

9. MCL 750.529(1), as amended by 2020 PA 313, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

10. MCL 750.237a(4) and (6)(d)–(e), accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

11. MCL 380.1313(4) (Revised School Code), accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

12. MCL 123.1102, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

13. MCL 123.1103(a)–(d), accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

14. WWMT, “New Grand Rapids ordinance increases restrictions for imitation guns”, 2019-12-04, https://wwmt.com/news/local/grand-rapids-city-commission-adopts-new-weapons-ordinance, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩²

15. City of Grand Rapids, “An ordinance to repeal and replace in its entirety Chapter 153 of Title IX …”, draft of October 2019, as published by WOOD TV, https://www.woodtv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2019/10/Fake-gun-ordinance.pdf, accessed 2026-10-18. Sections 9.172, 9.176, 9.177, 9.180 quoted. Codified chapter: https://library.municode.com/mi/grand_rapids/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIOLRE_CH153WE (not readable to the tools used, 2026-10-18). ↩

16. City of Ypsilanti, Ordinance No. 1421 amending City Code § 74-126, adopted 2024-03-05, effective 2024-04-04, https://cityofypsilanti.com/Archive.aspx?ADID=1928, accessed 2026-10-18. ↩

17. City of Ovid, Michigan, Code of Ordinances, Supplement 3, codified through Ordinance No. 149 (14 July 2025), Chapter 20 “Offenses”, § 20-213 “Firearms” (Code 1991, § 11-203; Ord. No. 68, 1976), https://library.municode.com/mi/ovid/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICOOR_CH20OF, read 2026-10-19; whole-code searches for “replica”, “imitation” and “facsimile” the same day returned no firearm provision. ↩

18. This hub’s Airsoft Gas dive, Volume 4 (alternate gases, flammability and storage) and Volume 6 (venting and storage habits). ↩