Chinese boy, 18, gets life in jail after fake guns he buys online turn out to be real
The weapons are considered real under China’s gun identification standard
An 18-year-old boy in southeastern China has been jailed for life for smuggling weapons into the country after the fake guns he bought online turned out to be real.
Liu Dawei was arrested by the Shishi customs branch in Quanzhou, Fujian province, in September 2014, the Procuratorial Daily reported.
Liu had bought 24 imitation guns from a Taiwanese seller through the internet two months earlier.
But police said 20 of the 24 guns were considered real guns.
According to China’s gun identification standard that took effect in 2008, non-standard guns which have a muzzle energy of more than 1.8 joules per square centimetre are considered real guns.
The standard before 2008 was 16 joules per sq cm.
Muzzle energy – the kinetic energy of a bullet as it is expelled from a gun muzzle – is an indication of a firearm’s destructive potential.
Standards in Hong Kong are 7.077 joules per sq cm in Hong Kong and 20 in Taiwan.
“The energy of 1.8 joules per square centimetre is like throwing a handful of beans across a table at someone,” Liu’s defence lawyer told the Fujian Quanzhou Municipal Intermediate People’s Court, which later passed down the life sentence.
Liu appealed the case in the province’s High Court but his appeal was rejected.
“I’m not expert,” Liu was quoted in the report as saying. “It’s almost impossible for ordinary people like me to know of such standards.”
