20/20: Kids and Dangerous BB Guns

Nov. 24 -- Every day Becky Mahoney of New Hope, Pa., leaves her home to spend 12 hours with her 17-year-old son Tucker.

It’s been two years since Tucker — a child Becky and her husband Jay describe as a parent’s dream — was injured in an accident involving a BB gun.

Tucker got the BB gun as a 16th birthday present from his parents. He had asked them for a Daisy BB gun so he could shoot at tin cans in the back yard. Two days later, as Tucker and a friend played with the gun thinking, they have said, that it was empty, it went off. The BB hit Tucker in the head with enough force to blow through his skull and penetrate his brain, an injury that has left him unable to walk, talk or even swallow on his own.

“No one could believe that a BB had caused the damage that it did,” says Becky.

Years of TraditionSince the 1970s the Daisy company has turned out millions of high-powered BB guns that have injured tens of thousands of children and killed at least 16. Daisy is the same company that also has produced the Daisy Red Ryder for 50 years, an airgun portrayed in movies and magazines as a part of growing up for generations of American boys.

Some of the Daisy BB guns in the market today, however, are much more powerful than the guns sold in the past. In a demonstration for 20/20, gun expert Dave Townshend — who has testified against Daisy in court — first fired the .38 Special revolver he carried as a Michigan state trooper. The revolver had a muzzle velocity of 752 feet per second. Then he pumped the Daisy Powerline 856 — the same gun that injured Tucker Mahoney — 20 times, which is twice the recommended maximum. The muzzle velocity for the Powerline was 780 fps, greater than the state police revolvers.

With the exception of New Jersey, these high-powered BB guns are for sale, without the need for a license, at about $45 each.

Daisy recommends its Powerline guns be sold to those 16 or over. But included in the Daisy box, 20/20 found gun safety brochures produced by the National Rifle Association with children that appear to be much younger than 16.