In the past days, we have been seeing news and social media posts warning of dangers posed by gun-shaped phone cases. While these are totally harmless phone cases on their own, they can be dangerous to their owners if mistaken by police and other gun-toting individuals to be the real thing. Just pulling out such cases can alarm the public or elicit a more instinctive reaction from law enforcement that can be injurious or fatal to the owner.

Police departments in the United States have been issuing advisories about these phone cases and politicians are calling for a ban on selling these. Amazon.com and eBay.com have already stopped selling the cases and have removed listings from their websites.

I would NOT suggest purchasing this cell phone case, which was designed to look like a firearm. #BeSmart #BeSafe pic.twitter.com/swsWzD1sdY

— NYPD 112th Precinct (@NYPD112Pct) June 30, 2015

While there have been no reports of incidents yet, many are calling this to be "a disaster waiting to happen." Just like our advisory to airsoft gun owners of not to display their airsoft guns in public, we'd rather not have people using these on their mobile phones. In the U.S. there have been incidents of people being shot for carrying airsoft guns in public, and even those who are carrying lighters can even get shot by responding police.

The makers of these phone cases have been marketing these are cool to use, and you can use these with the Russian Roulette mobile app. Now, there are efforts to brand these as uncool and dangerous to owners. The public can just refuse buying these and they'll go away. But that's not so easy to do as there still are people who will be gullible enough to buy these cases thinking it's a hip thing to have.

The right call will be to ban these phone cases outright and have mobile phone accessories sellers remove these from their displays before something that everyone will regret happens. Sometimes these supposed to be cool phone accessories can do more harm than good.