This is old news, but I missed it the first time around. Last September, London police stopped artist Ben Turnbull from putting a fake gun vending machine outside London schools.
Turnbull had planned to place the piece outside news agents near three different schools. The piece would have included a hidden camera to take snapshots of the kids’ reactions.
Unfortunately for Turnbull, it’s illegal to import or sell realistic replica firearms and to possess them in a public place “without reasonable excuse” in the UK. He was threatened with arrest and incarceration and didn’t go through with it. The piece went on exhibit at the Eleven gallery in London in October of 2009, sans photographs. See other pieces from the exhibition here.
I can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been had he tried to do this in the good ol’ US of A?
Read more: London Evening Standard, The London Paper
