Kids Playing With Toy Guns?

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kbm6893

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I grew up playing with guns, and I'm a big gun owner now. But my 6 year old LOVES playing with toy guns (and I gotta admit I like playing with them with him, too). Toy machine guns that light up and he just got 3 Nerf guns with enough ammo to take Omaha Beach for birthday. His 3 year old sister loves getting involved, too. But I wonder if it's smart associating guns with toys. I'm trying to be a good parent and my REAL guns are locked away, but I flinch at the thought of them finding a real one and thinking it's a toy. ALL his friends have the Nerf guns and stage battles, which looks like great fun.
 
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I have three kids, two boys and a girl, and toy guns are staples around here, as well as my collection. My kids have been taught from an early age the difference in their toys and dads real guns. They know what to do and how to handle coming in contact with a real gun if I am not around, and I constantly remind and reinforce what to do and how to handle the real thing.
 
Toy guns

Everything depends on how the children are raised and how they are educated about real guns, real violence, what is right and wrong.....I am a child of the 50's and 60's.....I grew up playing with toy guns.....watching westerns....watching WWII combat shows.....I learned to shoot from my dad and uncles and from the boy scouts of America.....we took our rifles to school and stacked them in the principles office, then the scout master took us to a range after school and we were instructed by an NRA rifle instructor..There were guns in our house and I knew there would be dire consequences if I messed with them.....I also went to church every Sunday and learned about the golden rule and the ten commandments.....I also learned that there were consequences for my actions when I strayed from the path of good - sometimes painful consequences.....I stayed in the scouts and became an eagle scout....then I went into the marines at 17 and learned about the reality of violence the way my dad and uncle's had in WWII....when I left the service in 72...I went into law enforcement....where I spent the next 34 years learning about the genus homo sapien & our society....I don't think there is a thing wrong with kids using their imaginations and being kids.
They & their parents need to enjoy it while they can.
 
I am also a child of the 50-60s. We played with cap guns and BB guns. We also knew that you didn't touch Dads or Grandpa or Uncles Bill's guns. We were taught the difference between toys and real guns. My dad did take us out and let us shoot the 22, we sure killed a lot of tin cans.
 
These days education and keeping the guns locked up are a good idea.

I also grew up playing with toy guns. Us kids were educated about gun safety at an early age. There was no such thing as a gun safe or quick access pistol box. Everyone had a nice wood gun cabinet with glass in the doors. Guns were kept there or in a nightstand drawer or dresser drawer. We were trusted not to tough them.

When I was old enough my father enrolled me in an NRA Hunters Safety course and I later shot on the school shooting team. I still have those certificates.

Generations of children have played with toy guns and let their imaginations run wild. I see nothing wrong with it.
 
We didn't have any guns 'til I was around 13 and my other brother inherited Grandpa's shotgun. So there was never any worry that I'd get Daddy's pistol (when I could not find my Fanner Fifty) and shoot my brother.

We did, however, have knives. Many of the toy sets came with knives. Bowie knives in both Cowboy gun sets and Army gun sets. There was never any worry that I would not be able to find my plastic bowie knife so I'd get the butcher knife from the kitchen and stab him.

I don't really see the difference. Toys are toys. Real ones don't look or feel like the toys.
 
From the earliest age we had toys that only made noise or did nothing (cap pistols and plastic toys of all kinds), more serious guns that could do harm like BB or pellet guns, and real guns. I had access to them all and never confused them, nor did any of my friends all of whom also had access to all three types.

We played army then would go shoot bb guns then shoot real guns sometimes in the same day by age of 6 or so, we never forgot which one we had. By age of 6 I had my own 22 rifles. I had to ask to have them, they weren't kept in my room, but I was allowed to go shooting on my own with them. At that age I think any child properly educated will know the difference in the three kinds and how to treat each one.
 
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I wouldn't worry about it as long as he's taught the difference between a toy and the real thing.

Roy, Gabby, and I shot a bunch of bad guys when I was 4 or 5. A few years later, I helped rid the world of a bunch of Nazis. My dad always had real guns in the house and I never thought of playing with them. I guess it was because I was taught to not do it. The consequences would have been severe.

Personally, I think the realistic videos dealing with guns are more likely to present problems. I don't know if they do, but I'd think it more likely than toy guns. My two grandsons, 10 and 12, have never shown any interests in guns. Don't know why. I guess they don't have Roy Rodgers to watch.
 
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Aw, quit blaming the guns.... ;)

I had toy guns. We played cops n robbers, cowboys and indians, war, big game hunter (like hide n seek). Soon as I was old enough to hold it I shot my Dad's Hi-Standard 22 at targets and a single shot 22 at woodchucks in the fields of upstate NY and CT. Since I have become an adult I haven't randomly shot anyone, robbed a liquor store with a gun, or work as an enforcer in a gang.

We played with little green Army guys, built little forts from twigs and moved troops around trees and sand piles, lobbed rocks at little green tanks and little green troop transports. As an adult I have not made plans to form an army to invade a country or terrorize this one in any way.

I worked for a grocery store when I was 12, sweeping up and stocking shelves, got paid cash money and learned its value. Since I became an adult I have not robbed any banks or run any Ponzi schemes, nor do I try to con aging adults out of their life savings over the phone, or steal from my neighbors or employer.

When I grew up we learned about morality and taking responsibility for our actions.

'Course, when I grew up we didn't have gun-shaped Pop-Tarts, so maybe I was deprived......
 
I always played with toy guns as kid. But I also knew the difference between a real one and a toy. Though I can see the logic in not allowing toy guns. I want say I remember Elmer Keith or perhaps another shootist writing something about not allowing toy guns for kids. Both of my grandfathers were gun guys, one had no problem with them and the other thought it was foolish to have toy guns around.
Overall, in my young opinion, it seems to be lack of knowledge and respect for firearms that is the problem with kids now. From a young age I knew the dangers and was never tempted to "play" with an actual piece.
 
I had a zillion toy guns as a kid, personally slaughtered thousands of Japs, Krauts, Injuns, Mafiosa, and the occasional Random Outlaw. I graduated to BB guns, then rimfires, then the bigger stuff. I've raised four kids around guns, wore one to work for many years (and still do) and have never once worried about toys being "misused". Kids have vivid imaginations, and if their heroes are Cowboys, Soldiers, Cops, or whatever, they are going to emulate them. I realized a long time ago you can't child-proof a gun, so instead I gun-proofed my children. They were shown the power and destructive capabilities of real guns, and that lesson stayed with them after seeing things like milk jugs blown apart by bullets. They respect the power, know right from wrong, and don't have any trouble defining the line between reality and video games.

I guess it's not PC to give your kids toy guns......but I've never bought into the whole PC thing anyway, and neither do my kids!

Guns may be serious business, but they also have a fun side. The best days my kids had when they were little was going with Pop to the range, or the country, and blowing stuff up. Twenty years later, they still get excited when they talk about their favorite shooting memories!

Have you ever seen a bigger ****-eating grin? This was his first time with the AR-15.



Shooting a borrowed M1-A1. Nailed several clay pigeons at 100 yards his first time with it. Pop gloated for weeks!



He's pretty good with a pistol, too.





He's now 21, has a couple of pistols and an AR-15 of his own. Straight-A student, deeply religious, and like the other 3 kids, turned out better than I'd hoped. He's been shooting since he was FOUR. There might be a lesson there somewhere, but I bet it would be lost on some people.



So........how many enemy soldiers/bad guys/Injuns did YOU guys send to the Promised Land, or somewhere else?
 
We also had and played with a variety of toy guns as kids. My dad got us a pellet gun that we got to learn gun safety with and as soon as we were "safe" and big enough to hold a revolver we got to learn to shoot the real thing. (for me that was about 6 years old for the .38 special) He wanted to make sure we knew what a real gun could do and we quickly learned the difference between our toys and the real thing.

The toys were for play whenever we wanted. The real thing was a time to be serious (but still have fun) and always with my dad. He made sure we knew the difference. He also eliminated the curiosity about the object so we (I at least for sure) never handled the real thing without his supervision.

I think the whole thing with giving us the knowledge, removing the curiosity, and giving us an alternative made us safe from the earliest age. Plus it's one of those sets of memories that make me smile and a set of skills that I will always be thankful for.
 
Just thought I'd resurrect my own thread. I was watching a 20/20 special last Friday night about kids and guns in the house. They had 4-6 year olds who watched the NRA safety video and were taught to leave guns alone and tell an adult, and then they put the kids in a play room where a gun was (unloaded, of course). Then they set up a camera. 80% of the boys and 40% of the girls picked up the gun, pointed it at each other, themselves, pulled the trigger, etc. The older kids (10 and above) were much more responsible. Once they become teens, all bets are off in many cases. Showing off to your friends and re-enacting Call of Duty can trump years of gun safety lessons.

Never got the whole "I can't lock my gun up. If there's a home invasion, I won't get to it" argument. The odds of that happening are very remote, and the odds are much higher that there is gonna be a tragedy. Some of these parents leave them on their nightstand loaded with kids in the house. One of the parents, a cop in a small town, left a loaded gun in his bedroom on top of a 5 foor dresser, in case somebody he arrested came for some payback. His 3 year old was told NEVER go into daddy's room and NEVER touch a gun. He shot himself in the head while playing with it.

Seems biology is against us. Try as we might, a 6 year old can NOT be counted on to remember what you have told him
 
Most of the opposition to toy guns comes from faux pacifists who won't hesitate to dial 911 and demand that people with guns rush to their location to "protect" them.

I'm not a pacifist, never have been, never will be. I don't have kids, but if I did, they'd have had toy guns... and planes and tanks and ships.

"Do you want children to learn that violence is a way to solve problems?"

"Hell yes... and not the way Anne Frank did."
 
All this toy gun talk got me thinking. My whole family is at disney in Orlando all week, my point is that there are toy gun's for sale in every store on all the disney property's. Now if the people at disney don't have a problem with this than why does everyone else?
 
I don't have a "problem" with them. As a parent, the thought of my child picking up a gun he is not supposed to have access to and shooting himself or another sickens me. While I can (and do) take steps to make sure that doesn't happen in my house, there are many who do NOT. While some may claim the show is biased, it did not show me anything I haven't already seen. Fathers leaving guns on high shelves or under the mattress, etc. The truth of the matter is that there are MANY people too stupid to own a BB gun, and they leave guns around because "my 6 year old knows not to touch it", which might be the case when he is in your presence but time and time again that logic is proven false, and because of some highly improbable home invasion scenario they saw on SWAT TV. Lock your doors and windows and get an alarm or a dog and you'll have the 5 seconds you need to get the gun out of the quick access safe.

Before i had kids, my gun was in the safe when I was not at home (the one I wasn't carrying), and on my nighstand when i got home. Once they came along, into the safe they went. I figure my heavy door and alarm will buy me the time I need to get to my handgun.
 
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