Should we allow our children to play with toy guns?

[T.O.M.]

I was just reading this thread:

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=31481.0

And in this thread, mtnbkr said "As a shooter and someone who wants his kids to enjoy the shooting sports, I prefer they don't get in the habit of pointing guns at people for recreation.  Yes, I know those are toys and they are very different than real guns, but I fear it could cause children to develop bad habits."

This got me thinking...I had a tremendous toy gun arsenal back in my youth.  Squirt guns, cap guns, guns that shot little yellow rubber bullet shaped things.  Most were realistic looking, except the Star Wars blasters.  Many I painted to look more realistic.  Friends in the neighborhood would spend all day in mock battles, or SWAT raids, or such, pointing a firing at each other.  lazer Tage came along, and we jumped on that.  If paintball had been available, we'd have been all over that.

Yet, Dad had real guns.  In his den.  On an unlocked rifle rack.  And in the drawer of his nightstand (also unlocked). My grandfather did as well.  I never touched one without permission, and when I did, the rules were strictly enforced.  So, that's the way I'm raising my sons, but their Nerf guns aren't as real looking.

Am I doing it wrong?  How are you raising your children with toy guns, and why?  I figure, I spent hundreds of hours pointing toy guns at others and pulling the trigger, and I turned out okay, so I'm following the example my father and grandfather set for me.  And, I mean no disrespect to mtnbkr.  Frankly I respect Chris a lot, and I think we just have a difference of opinion on this one.

[dogmush]

Personally, I think that kids playing with toy guns helps cement the line between fantasy and reality so that when they get older and start seeing movies, TV, and video games they have a frame of referance for "those gun shots are OK, because the actors are just playing and the guns aren't real".  Kinda a concrete reference for the idea that some gunshaped objects are more dangerous then other gun shaped objects and it's vitally important to know the difference.

Of course that also requires the children to have an understanding of the line between fantasy and reality, and for the parents to reenforce that line as they grow up.

FWIW I also had a huge "arsenal" as a kid, ranging from super soakers to pellet guns and later flare guns, and they had differeing safety rules based on the level of danger.  My houshold also had unlocked, loaded firearms.  No one was shot.

One cavet, I am not a parent, so assuming your child conforms to basic civility rules this diecision is definatly in the realm of each parents choice.  I don't see any real harm to the child either way.

[Doggy Daddy]

I grew up the same as you did.  I had quite a collection, from revovler type cap guns to the realistic looking (pre-orange tip) uzis etc, to decent sized plastic cannon that shot plastic cannon balls with a spring.  Then there were the totally made up guns (Johnny 7!) and action figures with all sorts of gear.  Played lots of games of "army", "cowboys and indians" (we were SO un-pc), cops and robbers...

I grew up more or less okay.  The "less okay" parts can't be blamed on playing with toy guns.  Neither did I get an unhealthy attachment to them... I didn't aquire a "real" gun until I was in my late 40s.

My one worry about letting kids play with toy guns today would be LEO reaction.  But then you have to worry about the same thing if they see your kid with a wallet or a basketball.

DD

[MrsSmith]

I have a lot of respect for both of you and I don't think either of you is wrong. This isn't a case of wrong or right, it's a case of personal belief and choice. You're both responsible adults, well-educated in safe gun-handling practices, and raising your kids in the manner you each feel is best.

I grew up playing with my brother's toy guns (when I wasn't forcing him at the point of said toy guns to play Barbies which has in fact come in handy for him now with his daughter), pointed and "shot" them at each other and other neighborhood kids. No one ever wanted to be the bad guy. No one got hurt. My step-dad's guns as well as the guns of all the neighborhood kid's parents were never kept locked either and like you, we all knew better than to touch them without permission and strict supervision. And that was one rule none of us ever broke (unlike countless rules we did break). And we all knew that a belt across our backsides was the least of our worries if we broke those rules. We'd all seen our father's come home with dead game and new the difference between toy guns and real guns.

My brother and I have both done the same with our kids. That doesn't mean it's right or wrong, just what worked for us.

As to the LEO reaction DD mentions, by the time we were old enough to be running around where we might have interactions with LEOs, we had outgrown the whole toy gun thing anyway.

[White Horseradish]

Trying to get a kid to not play with toy guns is pointless. They will make them out of sticks and will nibble toast into gun shape.

[MechAg94]

Trying to get a kid to not play with toy guns is pointless. They will make them out of sticks and will nibble toast into gun shape.

QFT.  We would do this all the time.

My Dad didn't get upset with us for playing with toy guns, but he did insist that we not shoot each other with them.  I had a flash light with a push and hold button to manual strobe it and he didn't want me shooting people with the imaginary laser either.  He told us to imagine bad guys and shoot them.  We did that a lot.  We still shot each other occasionally when he wasn't there.  Same rules for BB guns which we pretty much had with us all the time.

And yes, my Dad's guns were accessible and loaded.  My Dad's rule for the guns was to clear the chambers when near the house.  I guess we did that as kids so the idea of someone not understanding that only pulling the magazine doesn't unload the gun is very foreign to me.

[French G.]

My kid has translucent plastic water pistols and that is as far as I'm willing to go. From an early age I had air rifles and some basic gun safety training. Far better to expose kids to real guns and proper habits. The proper habits kept me safe when I did bad things like play with my parents' guns when they weren't home. Kids will eventually expose themselves to guns without you around and perhaps in a manner you don't approve of. Better they know the safety rules and consequences from you. Around 5th grade, two classmates of mine were walking from one of their houses to the other. Both had hunted before. One accidentally blew the head off the other with an unloaded 7mm Mag. That probably stuck with the survivor for a bit. Another kid I knew died on a moped at age 15 in city traffic. Kids just want to have fun, a parent's job is to teach that the world isn't all fun and games.

[grislyatoms]

Kiddo and I frequently have Nerf wars and Supersoaker fights. I haven't seen any negative influence on her safe handling of "the real deal".

I did all the "Cowboys and Indians" and "Cops and Robbers" stuff, too. One of my best memories growing up was making "poker chip guns" with my friends. 2x4, clothespin, rubber bands, and poker chip projectiles.
In that light, even if we hadn't been allowed toy guns, we would have made our own...some even functional to some degree.

[AJ Dual]

Plenty of toy guns growing up in the 70's and early 80's. Made some of my own too.

Where I got in trouble was lots of unsupervised use of airguns. Nothing injurious or deadly, just my share of ND's in the house when home alone and holes in things like walls and furniture that got me in lots of trouble.

However, it was still good for me, as I learned what that horrific ND/AD feeling was like years, that horrified car-crash feeling, a few minutes willing against reality with all your might, but of course, in vain that what you just did wasn't true, or didn't hapen... before I ever bought my first real firearm. And I got all the stupidity out of my system then.

Checking chambers and safe pointing directions, even when unloaded, or actions open is just second nature to me. And in the 20 years I've been a gun owner, I've never even come "close" to an ND/AD and have never even had a live round come out of a chamber when I wasn't expecting one.

[280plus]

nibble toast into gun shape.

Comes in handy for prison escapes. 

[Angel Eyes]

Trying to get a kid to not play with toy guns is pointless. They will make them out of sticks and will nibble toast into gun shape.

This.

There was some study done years ago in which a group of boys was given "nonviolent" toys like dolls to play with.  The boys simply bent the dolls at the waist such that the torso was the grip and the legs the barrel, and resumed playing with their pretend guns.

Then they were given Legos to play with.  You guessed it: they assembled the Legos into shapes resembling guns, and went back to their "violent" play.

[coppertales]

When I grew up there wasn't any other toys..................we played cowboys and indians and war until we could not stand up......chris3

[Scout26]

Like most everyone else here I grew up playing with toy guns playing "War", "Cops and Robbers", "Cowboys and Indians", "Batman", "Star Trek" and the like.  There were anywhere from 12-20 boys aged 5-15 in the neighborhood at any given time.  (we also played a bunch of Baseball, Football, Basketball etc.)  we ran around and terrorized the neighborhood in a pack of kids running around screaming their fool heads off kinda way.

Just about every house also had real guns in them.

And we knew that while setting the back yard on fire will get your ass beat, touching a real gun would get you killed, one way or another.  And we never did touch a real gun.  Ever.  Until we were old enough to be taken hunting or shooting.

Now my son is 10 and has toy guns, Nerf Guns, Super Soakers and Cap Guns (do you have any idea how hard it is to find real caps and cap guns these days?!?!?!)  And he goes hunting and shooting with me.  There is no doubt in either my mind or his about the difference between toy guns and real guns.  

In fact the only problem has been 1) Yes, you can shoot your sister with your Nerf Gun, but you just better be able to outrun the beatdown she'll give you if you do.  2) Don't shoot the dog.  Seriously, I mean it.  Don't shoot the dog.  If he bites you. I'll laugh, because you deserve it.

He hasn't shot the dog.  However, there has been a time or two when I heard my daughter scream my son's name, him hauling ass through the dining room and out the garage door with a Nerf Gun in one hand and a big o'l cheese-eating grin on his face, followed shortly thereafter by my extremely pissed off teenage daughter in hot pursuit.

 

[brimic]

Toy guns?
No big deal.
I grew up playing with toy guns or making them out of other things and I turned out mostly ok.  
We had quite a few unlocked real guns in the house too- you didn't touch those under the penalty of a severe ass beating.

Trying to get a kid to not play with toy guns is pointless. They will make them out of sticks and will nibble toast into gun shape.


This.

There was some study done years ago in which a group of boys was given "nonviolent" toys like dolls to play with.  The boys simply bent the dolls at the waist such that the torso was the grip and the legs the barrel, and resumed playing with their pretend guns.

In most non-insectoid animal species, males are wired up and put together to dominate/protect/fight for territory or other resources.
Kids are blank slates that are untainted by political correctnes who see weapons in everyday objects. It can be even fun for adults. We went to a museum yesterday and my son kept asking me what kind of weapon would be needed to take down a moose/a bear/ a T-Rex.
Liberals want a hive mentality led by females with weak or more or less useless males- like bees.

[vaskidmark]

I'm of an older generation than most of you (yes, I am a geezer) and unlike the rest of you heathens I grew up outside the USA.  We moved every couple of days, as opposed to most other government wonks/ military families assigned OCONUS who moved every year or so.  Most of the places we lived had military/ national police armed with automatic weapons that they pointed at the citizenry quite often and were never reluctant to pull the trigger.  As such I did not get to grow up playing with toy guns or real guns.  But that does not mean I did not know the difference between toy and real firearms, or that I did not engage in imaginary play that involved the shooting of military/national police or other armed folks of a nefarious bent.  And so did the few kids (other American ex-pats and native kids) I had contact with.

All that is to say that play involving the offering of violence against the oppressor/criminal seemed to me to be fairly universal, if in many places done as a clandestine activity as opposed to running about the streets committing utter terrorism.

As strange as it may seem, even in the most oppressive countries I "visited" I was able to access real firearms.  I never had difficulty distinguishing between pretend and real firearms, and knew that pointing/ shooting real firearms at those that would have been my targets would result in extremely serious consequences` usually involving my very painful and protracted death.

My take on the question is that it driven by political correctness and not deserving of too much consideration until/unless you find your kid(s) unable to setarate fantasy from reality.

stay safe.

[MrsSmith]

Liberals want a hive mentality led by females with weak or more or less useless males- like bees.

And thank G*d they aren't succeeding entirely. What a devastatingly boring world it would be.

[freakazoid]

Trying to get a kid to not play with toy guns is pointless. They will make them out of sticks and will nibble toast into gun shape.

Don't forget making toy guns out of Legos. 

[Regolith]

Like pretty much everyone else here, I had easy access to both toy and real guns.  I think I was able to get into my father's gun closet, despite the deadbolt, by the time I was 4 or 5.  My collection of toy guns would only be called an arsenal by the media, mostly because my parents were frugal and rarely bought us toys unless it was our birthday or Christmas, but I wasn't exactly reduced to using dolls or chewed up pieces of toast.

I find the argument against letting kids have toy guns to be very similar to the argument for not letting them play video games, or to the argument for banning real guns. It either as a matter of necessity ascribes an animus to an inanimate object that is wholly illusional, or massively underestimates people's intelligence.  Worrying about whether or not kids will be able to separate fantasy from reality if they play with toy guns is a misguided fear, as unless they have severe mental issues, the vast majority of kids should be able to discern the difference, particularly if they're taught to be safe around real guns.

[Perd Hapley]

As to the LEO reaction DD mentions, by the time we were old enough to be running around where we might have interactions with LEOs, we had outgrown the whole toy gun thing anyway.

I thought there were cases where kids had been shot by police because they were pointing toy guns at them. I think that's what Chris was talking about. I don't know how old a kid would have to "interact" with them in that way.

[Stetson]

My daughter is 3 and turned her Dora the Explorer Farm Lego set into a pistol shaped object.  She points it at the TV and says 'pew pew'.
I don't own 1st person shooter games and shes only seen my rifle and pistols once.

She does have a boy cousin that's 5 yrs old though.....hmmmmmm.

[AJ Dual]

As tool users, it's an innate human instinct to throw or launch projectiles. We, and our ancestors have been throwing stones at small game, arrows and spears at larger, so long, that it's part of our brain structure/DNA IMO.

[T.O.M.]

I thought there were cases where kids had been shot by police because they were pointing toy guns at them. I think that's what Chris was talking about. I don't know how old a kid would have to "interact" with them in that way.

I've read of this having happened a few times, but seen it happen or discussed many more times in some show or movie.  I'm not concerned about that in the least, as my kids aren't running around playing guns at midnight, and no one would mistake their Nerf guns or SuperSoakers for a real firearm.

The concerns mtnbkr/Chris seemed to express are that, on one hand, we teach gun safety with real firearms to the extreme (and rightfully so).  But, if we allow unfettered play with toy guns (allow them to violate the Four Rules, "shoot" at each other, etc.) are we creating a problem?  I fully understand his concerns, and his logic.  I've even read that some members here and over at THR allow their children to play with toy guns but only if they follow the Four Rules of gun safety, to reinforce safe gun handling.

I just don't think that is necessary.  i think you can allow free play with toys, yet still teach responsible gun handling with the real thing.  Though I do chuckle when I see my older son take his finger off the trigger of his SuperSoaker while moving during a squit gun battle.

[Doggy Daddy]

As to the LEO reaction DD mentions, by the time we were old enough to be running around where we might have interactions with LEOs, we had outgrown the whole toy gun thing anyway.

I thought there were cases where kids had been shot by police because they were pointing toy guns at them. I think that's what Chris was talking about. I don't know how old a kid would have to "interact" with them in that way.

Wallet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou_Diallo_shooting

Basketball: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2002/dec/10/trial-opens-in-25-mil-suit-against-metro-over-kill/

DD

[grislyatoms]

As tool users, it's an innate human instinct to throw or launch projectiles. We, and our ancestors have been throwing stones at small game, arrows and spears at larger, so long, that it's part of our brain structure/DNA IMO.

Hey, cool, so by that definition I have proof I'm human! Finally!

[Scout26]

by the time we were old enough to be running around where we might have interactions with LEOs, we had outgrown the whole toy gun thing anyway.

This.  (and it by that time it involved cars)

I guess the other thing was that when and where I grew up we never saw a police officer.  Ever.  Our subdivision was newly built and somewhat "out in the country."  They simply never sent a car back there.  Never any reason to.

Our subdivision backed up to a tree nursery and dairy farm.  

The nursery owner actually liked having us kids running around back there (we were to let him know if we saw anyone other than him and his crew taking any trees or bushes) and the dairy farmer didn't mind us as long as we left his cows alone we'd play ball in the pastures not in use.

The only "crime" was the occasional broken window, although the culprit would be quickly ratted out, if he didn't confess first.  The specter of Swift, Decisive and Overwhelming Mass Punishment ensured that.  

We also weren't out after dark.  Since there were no streetlights, you went home when it got dark.   There may have been some debate as to what constituted "dark", which generally was defined a little tighter by parents then what we kids thought it should be.  But it wasn't much past sundown, and it sure as hell wasn't midnight or later.

Even now, though the Wheaton police seem to go down every street at least once a week or so, I doubt that the officers seeing a pack of kids running around with even toy guns would cause a raised eyebrow.