Children playing in the street with toy cap guns may be turned into criminals, a Teesside MP has warned.
Government plans for outlawing replica weapons could make children's toys illegal, warns Stockton North's Labour MP Frank Cook.
Moves to ban replica weapons were announced by Home Secretary David Blunkett this week in the wake of the New Year shooting in Birmingham in which two teenage girls died.
Today Mr Cook warned that once again the Government was rushing into "impulsive, ill-considered" legislation.
His fears are set out in a Commons motion which dismissed the Government's proposals as "ludicrous".
The motion, which Mr Cook has co-sponsored, points out that the horrific Birmingham shootings were carried out with automatic weapons which have never been legal in Britain.
He said what the Government should be doing was looking carefully at the whole issue of shooting and shooting sports including archery and devising properly thought-out laws.
Ministers and Home Office civil services he suggested were now simply rushing forward with plans in order to "be seen to be doing something".
That, he believes, is what happened after both the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres, but the results have not made Britain's streets any safer.
Following Dunblane, he said, some 50,000 law-abiding sports marksmen had their handguns confiscated, while many businesses were made bankrupt.
But that legislation had failed, for since it came into force, handgun crime had soared by 35pc.
Urging the Government against "legislating in haste" Mr Cook and his Commons colleagues want ministers to think again.
They suggest the Govern-ment would do better recognising that the way to tackle gun crime would be to tackle the causes of disaffection and drug abuse among young people.
