By Susan Ferriss, iWatch News
The fatal police shooting earlier this month of a Texas middle school student clutching a BB gun -- the latest in a series of incidents involving imitation firearms -- spotlights how localities and states have struggled to identify and control both look-alike toys and guns that fire something other than bullets.

Like virtually every issue involving firearms, this one is complex and fraught with political peril.

While real school shootings are rare, children show up at schools with imitation guns often enough to raise concerns, especially among law enforcement personnel. In California, for example, about 1, 330 school suspensions were issued to students for bringing imitation firearms to school during the 2010-11 academic year, according to state data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity. Seventy California students were expelled for this offense during the same year.

And, even though some U.S. cities and states forbid it, kids regularly play with increasingly real-looking guns in neighborhood streets, parks or forests and in their own yards, sometimes attracting police attention that ends in children's deaths.

Regulation of imitation guns exists but is limited at the federal level. Instead, a confusing patchwork of laws to regulate the sale, use, and color of replicas has developed among states and communities. But whenever proposals to restrict imitation guns come up, controversy and opposition are sure to follow.

The state of California was the scene of such a high-stakes battle over an attempt at "look-alike" gun control last year. A measure to impose mandatory bright color requirements on all BB and pellet guns -- so that police could easily identify them as imitation -- failed under a heavy campaign of criticism from gun rights groups and others that it was misguided.

Reports of deaths, injuries and close calls involving imitation firearms have been frequent in recent years. In 2007, a 12-year-old boy in West Memphis, Ark., was shot dead by a police officer who was on a stakeout and reportedly fired at the boy because he made an "evasive" movement and appeared to have a gun he didn't drop. Police later said the boy had a toy closely resembling a real handgun.

In 2007, a San Diego, Calif., police officers reportedly shot and killed a teenager who had an imitation revolver on the passenger side of a car seat. That same year, a police officer reportedly nearly opened fire on one of three teens who were playing with real-looking guns on a school playground in Azusa, Calif.

On Jan. 4, in Brownsville, Texas, a panicked assistant principal called 911 and reported that a student was in a hallway brandishing a black gun. Police entered and later said that they repeatedly warned Jaime Gonzalez Jr. to drop his weapon before an officer fatally shot him. It turned out the boy, 15, had a black "nonpowder" BB gun that closely resembled a high-powered Glock firearm, according to police.