Sorry for you guys time but just fact checking something. The claim is:

"In 2001 (in London) two teens playing with Airsoft guns were shot dead by police on the street/ at a crossing"

Police use of firearms seems to be well documented in the interwebs but nothing turns up on this. Such a incident must have been huge for the UK due to the relative rarity of such incidents but I can't find anything.  

I'm leaning towards not true just that the person making the claim is not know for blindly making up stuff ,

Don't recall anything like that happening.  

What was the context you heard it from?

As far as I know, the number of people shot dead by police in the UK is around the 35 mark since 1995.  

ETA - List of all killings by police can be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom

Discussion on toy guns and if the ban needs to be re-instated.


History (excluding airsoft):

Toy guns (along with any object with a gun like form) were banned in Holland in 1932 because the government was scared Hitler would smuggle real guns in under the guise of them being toy guns  (I shit you not Funky it was that retarded).

Only Real guns were allowed to look like guns and the ban was total in the sense that you could get a license for a full auto but not for a toy gun. The ban stayed on after the war and despite it being monumentally stupid it was door kickingly strictly enforced. The ban included everything including clear plastic models or something you carved from unpainted  wood.

The ban of looking to much like a firearm was also applicable to airguns (that don't have power or caliber restrictions here). Mid 2000's parts of the police force decided they did not like the high powered airguns and started confiscating them on the basis that they looked to much like a firearm. The look-a-like criteria was in the hands of the police who unilaterally could just say "this item has a form that resembles a firearm".            

In 2008 some hansom dashing lawyer type who did not like the fact that his fine airgun collection (including some nice UK models from Daystate and Air Arms) could be confiscated at any time decided to start a test case based on EU trade law. Case went to the Dutch supreme court and ultimately to the European Commission and Holland had to change it's law.

If you can make sense of a with google translate here is an item in the national media about the continued confiscation
http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2050444-de-politie-neemt-vaak-onterecht-speelgoedwapens-in-beslag.html

No idea if this tranlation works
 
Thanks for the input such an incident must have been known in the media at the time so I'm ascribing it it miss information



 

 

Interesting.

Thanks Iggy.  

I guess every country has its bonkers laws that lack proportionality

I'll have a better read when I have a better connection. I'm on my phone at the moment.

Now I've reviewed all the scientific publications I can find of police firearms use in the UK and the incident isn't mentioned any ware.

As far as I am concerned I can not have taken place based on the lack of evidence any ware and the fact that such a news story must have been huge in the UK at the time. What is interesting is that in that time period the gun grabbers in the UK were spouting off all kinds of nonsense about airsoft guns so maybe the false claim was connected with that.

Thanks for looking anyway just to give you an idea how stupid it was here i give you a (dramatized) Dutch PSA on look-a-like guns. Skip to 2:40 to see innocent Dutch youths seduced by the fake guns  while on holiday in Dagoland.