Dads! Do you let your kids play with guns? - Page 3

[USoutofVT]

only my ak-47, and on occasion when he's been well behaved i let him shoot at birds. oh and on christmas i let him shoot the tree. i'm so proud of my seven week old!

[KrystalC]

I think it is o.k. for our son to play with toy guns when he gets a little older (he will be 3 in August). DW is totally against it. I think it is ok so he can play cops and robbers (good vs. evil).

Believe it or not, the "good vs. evil" idea isn't a failsafe. There is some evidence that kids are more likely to imitate a superhero than a villain because the violence and aggression can be justified in that regard.

That said, my little boy isn't going to be playing with any toy guns. As some other posters have said, a stick can be used just as easily and there is no possibility of confusion if you tell him "Don't play with guns." Your house may be safe, but you can't guarantee that there won't be a gun at a friend's house!

[papapoochie]

We are a non violent household. I played w/guns as a kid and look at the world today. See what I mean?

[Moose]

Guns...

My oldest will be 4 in Sept about a year ago she was going threw some hand me down toys and came across a orange plastic squirt gun, (shaped like a revolver). She looked at it, put one end in her mouth and started toot, toot, tooting away, (she assumed it was a saxophone ). When she got bored with it I threw it away.

I am a hunter and I carry a concealed weapon a good deal of the time. My oldest now knows what a real gun looks like and that all guns are not to be touched. I have never given her the chance to do anything but look at one of my firearms while cleaning it before it goes into the gun safe. I spent big money for a biometric locking safe so only my hand print can open it.

When they get older and can fully understand I will go thru gun safety with them and take them shooting once or twice so they can see what happens to things that get shot. I want them to have a good health respect for guns.

Super soakers and the like I don’t have a problem with. They don’t look anything like real guns and the idea is to get water from point A to point B, not “Kill” anybody, and it’s easier than a bucket.

Toy guns for the sake of “bang-bang, your dead!” is not something I think I am not going to have to worry about, however I think I would wait until the same age as that gun safety talk before allowing them.

[SammyJr]

I don't (or won't) have a problem with my kids playing with toy guns. We'll save the real guns for when they're a bit older.

[sphinxie]

This story won't work so well since I have to provide an explanation... but my DP comes from a country with an infamous civil war that appeared out of nowhere. He was once telling me about how kids there always played with guns and turned out fine. "Yeah, with a war-torn country," I teased ironically. It was really just a joke because he and his friends completely avoided the war, but yeah. You never know.

Even though I'm a peacenik I never took these strict restrictions on kids very seriously. But then I lived around one kid who I found did become more aggressive when around even the slightest "violent" influence. With him I learned to tone myself way down, and he always behaved well around me. Even with adults it made me much more conscious of times when we use words like "hit" and "grab" when we mean "reach" or "attract," and I listen when people speak that way and sometimes find that their mood is slightly more antagonistic. I'm not absolutely against that but I think it's worthwhile to be more conscious.

My guess is that maybe it depends on the kid. I would probably focus on how it influenced the kid in the short term rather than how it would affect their adult personality, because that's way in the future and there are a gazillion more influential factors before then.

[NaturalDad]

Originally Posted by papapoochie

We are a non violent household. I played w/guns as a kid and look at the world today. See what I mean?

DARN STRAIGHT!!! All of the kids I played with as a kid that played with guns a lot turned into the bullying, violent, maladjusted kids in middle school. I played with them a little to fit in with the others; but really wasn't into them.

My kids play with toy drums, keyboards, & other instruments. They play with a virtually unlimited supply of art supplies. They play with games that improve literacy. They are kind and intelligent children because we surround them with toys that foster these qualities.

[Hayes]

In our house, we don't PLAY with deadly weapons. Guns are not toys. We do own real guns. My DH is a hunter, both with a guna nd bow and arrow. Guns are not for little hands, and they certainly are not for playing.

[HelloKitty]

Originally Posted by Fionn

Some people say, "Oh, they're just going to use sticks and other toys as guns, so we might as well let them have toy guns." My feeling is that a toy gun is very obviously meant to be a GUN, and nothing else. A stick can be a gun, or a magic wand, or a telescope, or anything else the imagination of the child comes up with. Yes, a child who wants to play guns will do so with whatever is at hand, even a pointed finger, but why encourage gun behavior with toy guns? You can play cops and robbers with a banana, but it's hard to be Harry Potter or Gandalf with a toy gun.

Yep great point and ITA.

My biggest issue is convincing our in laws not to buy toy guns. :

[MyNameIsBen]

Allowing a child to play with toy guns to learn about good and evil is absolutely ridiculous. Also, teaching a child to associate a cop or a robber or anyone else with absolute good and absolute evil is stupid. I had to get that offa my chest. I am, technically, a combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I didn't have toy guns, but tree branches sufficed nicely. I played war in the woods behind my house.

All that being said, I would not allow toy guns into my house. I have a replica revolver that's a lighter, and I plan to get rid of that. If my child needs to express aggression and sports or pillow fights or whatever won't do, then they can use their imagination to make guns. I'd attempt to get to the bottom of this aggression and try to redirect them, and explain guns and their purposes. Water guns...I'd have to discuss with my pahtnuh S, but it can't be that hard to find some that in no way represent a real firearm.

[Imogen]

Living in the UK, the issue of gun ownership is not a big issue... Myself personally, I absolutely loathe the thought of them. Which is why I was adamant from the very beginning of my pregnancy in 2003 that I would never allow my son to own a toy gun. I cannot fathom the thought of him holding a toy gun, aiming it at someone and saying 'bang bang'

My sons Dad however, never understood my revulsion to the thought of my son playing with toy guns. But he has always respected my position on the issue and has never bought our son toy guns (probably because he knows it would go straight into the bin anyway )

[Stuck]

no guns no barbies

we have 2 young daughters 4 and 22m. my dh got a nurf gun for work they had a blast with them there. dh saw no harm in it. but i got terrified seeing my then 3 year old shoot one off. We both agreed on no barbie anything, but we stillgo a bit back and forth with guns. I see no useful purpose for them, past hunting for food and self defence. So one does need to know how they work when they are old enough and responcable enough to handle one. If we do have a son it will be interesting. My husbanddoesn't even take hisshirt offin public, but that's us. we are very dowen to eart natural people and guns are bad and icky and hopefully never to be apart of our childrens world anymore than they have to be. they terrify me personally. TMP ( that's my post)

[Maggi315]

We don't have any real guns in our house, but I grew up in a house with a gun shop in the front that my parents ran!!! So I am very comfortable around guns.

My husband is an ex-ranger in the Army, so he buys the kids army stuff, GIJoe, and yes, some guns. I like the nerf ones, they are fun to aim at targets.

One thing I don't allow is for them to point the gun at someone else. Just makes me uncomfortable to see that and I grew up learning about gun safety, etc.

They are allowed to shoot imaginary bad guys, monsters, bad supervillians, etc. But not at each other. And when my son plays with his army toys, mostly he moves them from point A to B and back again.

I know this is a hot topic in many homes and I respect everyones views. If someone would not want their child playing with guns, I would put them away when they came over.

[NewMoonMommy]

I don't want to knock anyone else's opinions or experiences, but I do want to offer my own, for what they're worth. Forgive the lack of coherence please - just ending a long day in Teething Town.

No guns at all for us. Ever.

I was mugged a couple of years ago and had a gun pointed at me. At my head. This was not fun. This was not something to be repeated through play. Guns are tools designed to mortally wound/kill living things (or threaten to do so) and I want to show my kids that I am absolutely against that (we are vegan, fwiw).

My mom is a preschool teacher and doesn't allow gun play in her classroom. Why? She lost a dear friend to a gunshot wound (also a mugging). She tells her students how her friend died and that she misses him.

Sure there is a lot of gray area - playing police, etc. But we choose to say that playing with guns is not ok. Acting out the intent to mortally harm is not ok.

Again, don't mean to offend, just wanted to offer a different perspective. Kudos to all who posted on coming to their own conclusions and being thoughtful in their parenting choices, whatever they may be.

[Shodan]

My son played with toy guns as a child, and does paintball now.

He also has his gun safety certificate, and qualified as a expert marksman in BCT. We do keep guns in the house - he is probably safer with them than I am.

Regards,
Shodan

[Mighty Jalapeno]

The wee-un has plastic guns, and he's watched both me, and his uncles, and grandfather, fire guns out at the farm. Personally I don't see him being around guns to be detrimental, because the world is full of guns, and I'd rather he understood them, than feared and revered them.

They are tools, and like any tool, they can be abused by the people using them. Since cars kill more people than guns, I think that more parents need to keep their kids off the streets.

[everettdaddy]

I was raised around guns, with guns, and Yes, I played with guns.. I don't think it cinfuses children if you teach them correctly the proper time and place for guns, which guns are toys and which are toys.

I don't like the our "Anti-gun" society, the way it is, and i don't think that children should be afraid of the guns. They should be afraid of the idiots out there that don't properly teach there children about guns, and then that child goes into a school and shoots it.. but it is not the gun that should be scary.

Am I saying that our kids should get shot, NO, I am not.. buit a little education goes a long way.. I think that the public school children should be taught gun safety in schools, and I think that a child should go through gun courses at their local range, if the child is not in the public school forum.

It is never to late to teach children about guns, and the more eduaction that they have the less likely they are to use them irresponsibly. I think that a child should be atleast 10 years before being able to shoot a real gun, but the education of the guns ahould start at about age 3.

[L'lyn'sDad]

I am not opposed to allowing my children play with toy guns, GI Joe or similar violent toys. My DD (23years) did not but my son (21 yrs) did and he is peaceful. I don't know what my DD 6 mos will do but she can chose. Her Mother is military and we do martial arts so we have to teach her about war and violence and its role and costs. I grew up with my friends refighting WW II and none of my my friends became violent.

I will not let real firearms in the house as we have no reason to it (my GF somewhat disagrees but has not pushed the point). Which leads me to my next point to papapoochie.

Originally Posted by papapoochie

Check out other more sophisticated cultures that have less violence and killings per year (called Europe). They are not gun obsessed like we Americans. I feel strongly about this. The more highly advanced the culture, the less gun obsessed it is.

IMHO it is not just gun culture but also the availability of guns in society. You need both. I live in Canada with a much lower murder rate than America. We are awash in the same violent culture that Americans get. (I believe Rambo was actually filmed in Canada for instance) In our history guns have been restricted by the government and more so over the past 10 years. We don't have the right to bear arms here. We have a lot less guns and have a much lower murder rate. The recent rash of gang related gun violence in Toronto was with hand guns smuggled in from America. I am glad you consider us a 'more highly advanced culture'. I think America is a great country so much so that I fell in love with an American and fathered her child.

[vanessab23]

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[muckemom]

between my dad, my wife's parents and various friends and family our son has plenty of toys... we don't make a big deal out of NO GUNS... he just has never been around them, and all friends and family know that we would prefer them not in the house...


I know that when I was little anything that my parents made a lot of drama about (no smoking, no guns) I just became enamored with said issue even more...