Sadly true. Not only the Kentucky case, but in New Jersey a few months ago a 4 year old playing outside went into the house, picked up a gun, and shot & killed a 6 year old. The father of the 4yo has been charged over it since.
Toy guns in the US are now required to have bright orange flashing on them to ID them as toys. Of course a criminal could put bright orange paint on a real gun to make it look like a toy, and some do (http://publicintelligence.net/baltimore-police-department-gu...) but since most criminals want to intimidate people with their guns it doesn't happen that often. It's more common, I suspect, for people to modify toy guns to make them look more real. Some people do so to threaten people, sometimes there's a case of 'suicide by cop' where the person calls the police or brandishes the painted-to-look-real toy weapon in public and then points it at police when they show up to investigate, who unsurprisingly tend to shoot rather than waiting to see if they'll get shot.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/dad-charged-new-jersey...
Toy guns in the US are now required to have bright orange flashing on them to ID them as toys. Of course a criminal could put bright orange paint on a real gun to make it look like a toy, and some do (http://publicintelligence.net/baltimore-police-department-gu...) but since most criminals want to intimidate people with their guns it doesn't happen that often. It's more common, I suspect, for people to modify toy guns to make them look more real. Some people do so to threaten people, sometimes there's a case of 'suicide by cop' where the person calls the police or brandishes the painted-to-look-real toy weapon in public and then points it at police when they show up to investigate, who unsurprisingly tend to shoot rather than waiting to see if they'll get shot.