Guns & your LO

[Deleted]

How do you feel about toy guns for LO?  At what age is it appropriate?

I flipped out this morning when we went to someone's house who has older boys (teens) and the 4 year olds got out the toy guns.  They weren't even those brightly coloured "kid" guns.  They were awful camo and brown/black ones, looked real, plus with ammo belts.  WTF!

I almost left, but instead managed to voice my discomfort about DS1 playing with guns (of ANY description) and they were put away.

No guns in our house, no bubble blasters, pellet things, BB guns.  Yuck.
Maybe when he's 10 or something he can play with them at someone else's house.?  DH is much more "meh" about this whole thing.  I am so uptight about it.  Guns aren't even legal here so I have never even seen a real gun in my 33 years.

Your thoughts?

[lauranicole91]

I don't like realistic looking ones. I have no issue with water and nerf guns though. So at whatever age those are appropriate for I will buy those.

Eta: BB guns aren't toys. They are a recreational activity that require adult supervision with much older kids. Same for air soft. I have some fond childhood memories shooting soda cans in the backyard with a BB gun when I was about 11-14 years old

So I'm not apposed to having a BB gun for that purpose. But as far as my 5 year old playing cops and robbers with a black toy gun, no.

[Deleted]

I don't plan on having toy guns in our house. I don't have a problem with super soaker water guns. No fake guns or bb guns for sure.

ETA. I won't call the water ones guns. Probably super soakers instead.

[lolaburns]

I grew up around guns ( real and toy via my brother) and we obviously have firearms in our home. I don't think DS should be playing with Ramboesque toy guns until an older age... Maybe 6 or so? I don't have a problem with Super Soakers or bright colored plastic water guns at 4-5, though.

[juliamastro]

I live in an area where everyone hunts and everyone has guns. 
I am really torn about this because I don't want him to think playing with guns is ok, but I also want him to be familiar and comfortable around them. 

I won't buy him toy guns while he is young, maybe when he is an older adolescent or teenager he could do air soft or paintball if he wants.

I definitely see and respect both sides of this argument.  


eta: i am also fine with super soakers and nerfs. I don't much care for the real looking ones. 

[jaime183]

we won't have play guns in the house. I havent decided how I feel about his friends who have them

[charlielove]

We won't ever have toy guns in our house.

[Deleted]

You know, the other day at preschool I heard the teacher say to one little boy who'd make a craft thingy, "A, I prefer if you find a different name for that instead of "light saber" because that's a weapon and we don't have those in school.  How about making it into a telescope instead?"

LOL.
And good for her.

[charlielove]

Ha! I like the way that teacher thinks!

[heyjojo]

I don't mind the bright colored super soakers and bubble shooters, but I dislike the nerf guns. There will most definitely not be any realistic looking toy guns in our household. I'm concerned about the time coming that I'll have to worry about his friends houses etc.

[monkeybabe]

I doubt we'll have toy guns, but I'm not going to worry about her going to friends' houses with them. Like Lola, we have real guns in our home, though. They're not toys and I don't want Zoe to ever think they are.

[Dorothy Zbornak]

No toy guns, no pretending things are guns, no pretending to shoot things, no using fingers as guns, no water guns. I am pretty adamant about this.

And certainly no real guns.

[eav2c]

I do not plan on allowing guns although sometimes the super soakers look like a blast (for me to play with, duh!). In my preschool class a lot of kids made believe that things like blocks and other objects were guns too. It's hard to stifle creativity and dramatic play but playing guns of any sort was not allowed... Even my nephew two Christmases ago pretended his toy drill was a gun and was pointing and shooting at everyone at 2.5 years old! It was rather uncomfortable. I will revisit the issue later when he is older but for now I stand firm on this opinion.

[Dorothy Zbornak]

Aug 7, 2013 23:50:33 GMT -5 eav2c said:

I do not plan on allowing guns although sometimes the super soakers look like a blast (for me to play with, duh!). In my preschool class a lot of kids made believe that things like blocks and other objects were guns too. It's hard to stifle creativity and dramatic play but playing guns of any sort was not allowed... Even my nephew two Christmases ago pretended his toy drill was a gun and was pointing and shooting at everyone at 2.5 years old! It was rather uncomfortable. I will revisit the issue later when he is older but for now I stand firm on this opinion.

The kids in our neighborhood do this sometimes, pretending to shoot at H or Butterbaby. I have no qualms about telling them to stop. It also makes me insanely uncomfortable when they do it.

[tuck]

No toy guns and no real guns in my house. No real guns ever. Ever ever ever.

I don't like pretend play with guns, but H doesn't naturally gravitate towards that anyway (it's hard to play My Little Pony with guns). She does, however, play with nerf guns and the like with her aunt, but that's only at MIL's house. And, her aunt is almost 17, so she's old enough to enforce good toy gun etiquette (we never point guns at real people, only pretend bad guys; only play with a gun that a trusted grown person gives you; never touch one unless you know for sure it's a toy; etc).

[Deleted]

My mil is a Jesus-loving pacifist with three sons. She insisted there would be no toy guns in her house (and she gave her boys dolls!) she also enforced a no pretend guns policy. One day she came home and the boys had made Lego guns and taped them to the baby dolls arms so that the dolls could shoot at each other.

Bless her, she gave up the no pretend guns policy.

We won't have toy guns, but I'll allow pretend ones. Even pretend guns need to follow common curtesy though.

[devonpow]

We are very anti gun and I always said "no toys gun, ever" (which was the rule I grew up with as well). Then Henry became obsessed with Legos - a fabulous, creative toy in my opinion, so I encourage it. A lot of those sets come with guns, especially Star Wars, police officer, etc ones (Henry looooves Star Wars). I figured it was ok because hey, they are less than a half inch long. But seriously, it is kind of shocking to me how Henry and his friends make basically anything a weapon. I doesn't matter how man times I say "we don't like to pretend thi H's are guns. Real guns hurt people, etc etc etc" he still does it. Legos, sticks, toilet paper roles...they become blasters or guns, or lasers. Pirate day at camp encourages a whole lot of sword play. It kind of never ends.

[jfh]

I really hate realistic toy guns. What a horrible idea. I don't really have a problem with fakey toy guns or imaginary ones. I played that sort of thing as a kid and I never had any trouble understanding that they were not in the same universe as real guns. We had guns in the house growing up and I don't think I even mentally connected them with water guns or imaginary gun play.

That said, it's a problem if they play that way at school. So if they start to show an interest in playing that way at home, we'll have to have a lot of discussions about what it means, why some people are uncomfortable with it, where they can do it, and how they can do it.

[katfco]

I'll possibly allow water guns that don't remotely resemble real guns, but no toy guns, whatsoever. The only "gun" in our house is the little revolver that goes with the Clue game. If we lived in an area where everyone hunted, I might be a bit more understanding, but we don't. Although some people do hunt, the only reason they have handguns is to shoot other people.

Abby did come home from kindergarten sometimes going "pew! pew! Shoot! Shoot!" because she was playing with some of the kids, but we let her know you don't pretend to shoot someone. Fortunately, our school has a zero-tolerance policy even with pretending. One day a boy pointed a piece of paper at Abby and said, "I'll shoot you" and they took it very seriously.

[rubber pants]

Aug 7, 2013 23:04:50 GMT -5 lolaburns said:

I grew up around guns ( real and toy via my brother) and we obviously have firearms in our home. I don't think DS should be playing with Ramboesque toy guns until an older age... Maybe 6 or so? I don't have a problem with Super Soakers or bright colored plastic water guns at 4-5, though.

This is us to a T.

[rjamz]

I don't love the idea of toy guns, but I have no problemproblem with water guns and stuff. I know kids will turn anything into a gun sometimes so I plan on talking to him about guns and gun safety and that we don't shoot people.

This isn't a big gun area, so no one (besides my dad, actually) has them.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using proboards

[robinsparkles430]

Aug 7, 2013 23:39:10 GMT -5 monkeybabe said:

I doubt we'll have toy guns, but I'm not going to worry about her going to friends' houses with them. Like Lola, we have real guns in our home, though. They're not toys and I don't want Zoe to ever think they are.

This.
My husband and I go shoot at my parent's house and have guns locked up and out of reach in our home. I don't want J to think they are toys so we will not have toy guns in our home.

[laouli]

Aug 8, 2013 6:41:25 GMT -5 rubber pants said:

Aug 7, 2013 23:04:50 GMT -5 lolaburns said:

I grew up around guns ( real and toy via my brother) and we obviously have firearms in our home. I don't think DS should be playing with Ramboesque toy guns until an older age... Maybe 6 or so? I don't have a problem with Super Soakers or bright colored plastic water guns at 4-5, though.

This is us to a T.

This as well... But I do have rules for toy guns.. we dont aim them at people EVER And they definitely have to be the super fake ones....

[puppylove64]

Aug 8, 2013 3:11:31 GMT -5 @thadsrad said:

We won't have toy guns, but I'll allow pretend ones. Even pretend guns need to follow common curtesy though.

I really respect this idea. I think you can enforce a no gun policy, but you can't control your child forever. It is important to teach them not to shoot each other.

[Deleted]

Growing up, my favorite playground game was when the guys let me play "Mortal Combat." I was Smoke and Jade. We didn't need guns. We could do....whatever those crazy moves where that killed people.

[orriskitten]

Dh and I actually just had our first discussion about this. He grew up with toy guns that didn't look too real and isn't opposed to them. I will not have a "real"looking gun toy for my kids.

I am ok with neon water guns/super soaker things and Nerf stuff, though. With rules, of course. when you shoot things at people, people can get hurt so there will be rules and discussion about it.

Dh has a different view on guns, though, since there are no hand guns in Iceland. There are guns for hunting, but even the police don't have access to guns. There is one squad in the Icelandic police system that are allowed guns and they are almost never called on. I'm so used to a different culture that I think gun education will be quite different. Growing up I saw guns every day since there were security guards with guns in my school/outside of my school and my family is fdny/EMS/nypd heavy. It was in my face so I had to learn. I don't know how it will be for a kid who only ever sees it on TV.

[showdogz]

Realistic guns=bad. Most everything else I'm fine with. Guns and hunting are a big part of our life.

[Deleted]

My big thing is no realistic looking guns and I would prefer no guns at all. Knowing my ILs that won't happen though.

We do not own guns and I am not comfortable w the boys being in a house w guns until I see how they are kept and secured. How the fuck I'm going to enforce that, I don't know. My sister has guns and I know where the safe is and how they are kept, though, and that's the place they'd be the most often right now, so.

[musiclover]

We are cool with water guns and nerf blasters, but we will NOT have realistic looking guns in the house. I personally feel that the extent of the water gun/toy gun/blaster hate can get a little over the top, but that is just my opinion. I'm not saying just in this thread, but in real life. I can't imagine not letting my 4 year old shoot a harmless nerf blaster or blast a water gun on a hot day, as long as he knows that real guns are violent and un-safe, I personally see no problem.

[orriskitten]

Aug 8, 2013 10:51:38 GMT -5 musiclover said:

We are cool with water guns and nerf blasters, but we will NOT have realistic looking guns in the house. I personally feel that the extent of the water gun/toy gun/blaster hate can get a little over the top, but that is just my opinion. I'm not saying just in this thread, but in real life. I can't imagine not letting my 4 year old shoot a harmless nerf blaster or blast a water gun on a hot day, as long as he knows that real guns are violent and un-safe, I personally see no problem.

I totally agree.

At least now they make the tube water shooter things. They look like a pool noodle with a plunger on the end. Doesn't look like a gun at all.