A bb gun can be lethal. You can put someone’s eye out with it and, if you shoot them in the right place, kill them. I believe that it is considered a deadly weapon.
OK guys, I guess I forgot the /S tag.
I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to attempt a holdup with a realistic looking replica of a gun, whether it shot BB’s or was completely inert and didn’t shoot at all. But, it happens all the time.
With all the “He was just turning his life around, why did they shoot him?” rhetoric, I figured BB guns could be fit in, too. “It was just a BB gun—why didn’t the (Cop, victim, shooter) look at the bore of the gun to determine it wasn’t real before deciding to shoot?”