Do you let your children play with TOY guns? If so what are your rules?

Question

WOW! I am suprised at how many moms do not! My boys do and we have similar rules as the rest. My husband goes hunting so .... how can I not? Moms that don't let your children, don't they use other things and 'pretend?' My son builds them out of legos and empty wrapping paper tubes and he has guns...

Answer 1

Good for you! I see nothing wrong with playing with toy guns.
Here's an excerpt from a short story I wrote that presents my feelings on the subject. Thank you for being a good mom.

Epilogue

Between the late nineteen-forties and early nineteen-sixties there were over one hundred and twenty westerns on television. Today there is only one, thanks in part to the cable networks which have opened many other avenues for writers and producers to aire their work. Of all those shows I remember only a handful. My favorites were 'Gunsmoke', and 'Maverick', but I also remember fondly many of the westerns produced by Warner Brothers that aired on the ABC network. A list of them, and a few others, follows this epilogue.
To say that those shows greatly influenced me, and the person I became, would be an understatement. Although my great-grandparents, particularly Big Dick, played a major role in the development of my personal integrity, those television shows contributed as well. As television in those days was black and white, so were the
characters. You always knew who the bad guys and the good guys were. There was no ambiguity, and even though you knew Bret Maverick would rather play poker than fight, you also knew that when the chips were down he would always do the right thing. That was true of all the other marshals, sheriffs, deputies, rangers, drifters and other heroes that rode or ambled or moseyed across the small screen. You could be sure that by the time the last commercial was over, the bad guys had all been killed, hanged or punished according to the Law Of The West, and that the good guys would ride back next week to bring yet more villains to justice.
Does anyone today give or buy toy guns for their children? In this age of political correctness, where a policy of zero tolerance allows school officials to expel children for having an aspirin in their backpacks, or for carrying a key chain that is an inch too long and violates some mindless, arbitrary policy? I doubt it! Or does anyone really care that personal integrity is routinely bartered for political, social, or economic gain? I doubt that also.
It seems to be okay for kids to play computer games more violent than any backyard game we played as cowboys and indians, or westerns we watched. Is a cap pistol that produces a short pop and a puff of smoke, so different, so much more dangerous than a mouse or joystick, that with the push of a button sprays gallons of vivid, virtual blood and guts all over a nineteen inch monitor or fifty-five inch, high definition plasma television screen?
If I had kids today, I would give them cap guns and cowboy clothes and send them to play in the back yard, and lock up the computer hardware and software. It would provide them with better exercise and improve their imaginations.

Answer 2

I work in childcare and my students are not allowed to play with anything at school that shoots. They get very creative trying to break the rule. like lazers on ships. now personally at my own home when I have children they still won't be allowed to play with guns because they are weapons for killing. when they are old enough to understand the REAL danger of a gun they might be taught how to use one SAFELY at a target shooting range. A gun is not a toy and will never be pointed at something you wouldn't want to destroy. I am a worman and I own a handgun which i use for competition with the IDPA. we practice real world possible self defense scenarios of concealed carry.

Answer 3

I do not let kids play with guns at work (I am a preschool teacher) out of respect for parents and kids who are afraid of guns. At home, however I will let my kids play with fake guns and when they get older, maybe even take them to archery or rifle classes. I also teach my kids to respect those people who are afraid of guns and not to play with them around people or other kids who don't like them (I hated guns when I was a kid, and especially hated rubber band guns). If the gun shoots anything out of it, I teach my kids not to point it at people's eyes or shoot them at close range where it might hurt them. If they break the rule even once, the guns get taken away!
I do not like violent video games and simply steer clear of
those for my kids.

Answer 4

My son plays with toy guns but also goes hunting. He is 5 knows all the safety factors , i taught him very early what guns can actually do to people and animals which has given him a great respect for that , as well as my rules of gun play. He cannot point them at people or gets them taken away

Answer 5

If I ever have a son he will be allowed to play with them. But I wont let him aim them at anything unless he is playing a game. But I have two daughters, so I really don't have to worry about it right now.

Answer 6

I do allow my boys to play with toy guns. My husband doesn't hunt like yours so it was our chose, but we chose to. They aren't allowed to point them at people or animals because thats "not nice and can hurt people." They are only allowed downstairs in family/playroom, but mainly outside. They are boys how can I not let them I would rather them play with them now than be curious and use use a real one when they are older. My boys now what kind of things guns can do and they understand we do not point them at people or animals.

Answer 7

definite, they're allowed. That stated, even nevertheless they have a number of categories of toy weapons (rubber band weapons, water weapons, cap weapons) they not often ever decide directly to play with them. while we did no longer enable them to have quite toy weapons, they might lead them to out of Legos or perhaps paper while they wished to apply them for his or her game. We actually have a Wii game it rather is a taking photos game, yet often it rather is basically my husband that performs that. I used to go out taking photos with my pals (clay pigeons) in extreme college. My brothers and that i performed law enforcement officers and robbers and cowboys and Indians with toy weapons for all time and none human beings are companies to violence. i do no longer think of any human beings even own weapons, yet i could desire to be incorrect, no longer having lived close to my brothers maximum of our person lives.

Answer 8

Yes, they can not point them at any living thing or pictures of living things, unless it's deer or something that their father hunts. The girl below me is right. At first, I would not let my son have a toy gun but then he would just start making gun shapes with everything-even his toast. I also agree with the first person.

Answer 9

I hate guns and think they are unnecessary play things for children. The only guns I find as "okay" are water guns, because most do not reassemble real guns. These are the only guns they'll be allowed to shoot at people.

Answer 10

lol. i was one of those "no toy guns" mommies. then my son started improvising. a stick was a gun, a broom was a rifle. an empty cardboard tube was a cannon. we gave in and got a pirate pistol for him. he slept with it for a week.

boys like guns, what ya gonna do!