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allow toy guns for your kids?
goldeneagle76
Member Posts: 4,359
What is everyone's thoughts on toy guns for their children? Is it hard to teach children the difference between real and fake? Should water guns never be pointed at others??? Does safety start with pellet guns? My daughter is not even 2 yet but I'm trying to decide what to do. Growing up my mom never let us have guns other than a few squirt guns here and there. My dad let us shoot a .22 when we were a little older.
Comments
Personally I think it's not a bad idea to impart a healthy respect for gun safety at a young age. It's too easy for a child to think that the real thing is nothing more than a bigger, heavier version of what they're used to playing with.
Now saying water guns and laser tag pistols should NEVER be pointed at someone is a bit much, but some safety measures should be taught:
- Never aim it at a police officer or a stranger. If you're going to be playing with water pistols or Nerf guns or any toy gun, make sure it's with friends or family.
- Toy guns are not real guns. The real thing make look similar, but it is nowhere near the same function or purpose as a toy.
- Toy guns are fine to play with, real guns are not. Teach them the difference between the two and make sure they understand.
I think just as it is okay to let kids ride the bumper cars, so it should be fine to let them play with toy guns - so long as they know the difference between the toy and the real thing and the rules that govern each, it should be fine.
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. They know things that hurt and can learn the lessons quickly IF THEY ARE TAUGHT PROPERLY!!!!!!! The kids who get into trouble with guns more often than not are the ones whose parents never taught them just how powerful a gun is and how much to respect it AT ALL TIMES!!!!!!!!!! That is, if the parents even ever knew themselves.
Don't be afraid to introduce her to your world and the wonderful world of shooting, collecting, hunting, reloading, and every other aspect of this culture. She can learn. The younger the better, IMO.
Dont point it at anything it could hurt, If im caught doing so i would have no guns till i was 18
That summed it up good for me, and i still have my guns dont i?
I guess being around dad and Grandpa when they were shooting helped alot. and dad letting me "help" clean his guns
If my future kids can't tell that difference, I must have some stupid wife in my future [:D]
Most "normal" kids who grow up in "normal" conditions know the difference between "play" (make believe) and reality. If they don't and you can't teach them, you're just out of luck.
I think it is important to teach children gun safety and the difference between a toy and a gun. The more they are kept ignorant of guns, the more curious they are, and the more curious they are, the more dangerous it is when they come across a gun.
It was easy for me
Dont point it at anything it could hurt, If im caught doing so i would have no guns till i was 18
That summed it up good for me, and i still have my guns dont i?
I guess being around dad and Grandpa when they were shooting helped alot. and dad letting me "help" clean his guns
Ditto, except for one slight indiscretion in 1955 when I 'shot' Davy Crockett (nailed him between the eyes) one night while alone in the basement playroom/family room watching the introduction of the Disneyland Hour (brand new in those days). The tube imploded - lesson learned. ... didn't think a BB gun could do that. Dad twisted it around a small tree - left it there for a year as a reminder to 1.) me ... and ... 2.) my peers! My dad was a very smart father.[:D]
Jon
I never had any problem with my daughter on this, but my son had to be taught a lesson to know that I was not jokeing.
He had a cap riffle and pointed it at a nieghbor kid, I warned him the first time. When it happenened again I snached it from his hands and broke it over my knee!
He has never done it again!
Currently both kids have BB/Pelet guns ( kept in my room with their real guns) and air soft guns (they get to keep those in thier rooms). I have never even had to warn them about safety with these guns and they shoot at nothing but targets with them.
He crashed his toy cars all the time and I didn't tell him not to do that cause someone can get hurt when he starts driving a real car.
Why? Because he will know better by then.
My kids currently play soft air and paintball in the yard and with friends. I even play softair with them occasionally. Paintball is too expensive for parents. I have a hard enough time keeping my kids in paintballs and CO2.
I did tell them to stay away from the road and never point at someone who wasn't playing. I also told them that if they ever see a cop approaching them, to drop the gun and step back from it and wait for further instructions from the police officer.
..By all means let her (if she so wishes) have all the toy guns she wants and you will allow.
...For Christ's sake don't grab her toy gun and break it if she points it at someone like Kevin did, that's absurd, geez. Kid's will be kid's and play cowboys and injins and robbers etc.
..What fun is a toy gun to a kid if they have to point it and "kapow" a tree???...[;)]
My son shot with every stick and finger he saw anyway. He is 11, has his own rifle and has had plenty of toy guns. He hasn't made a mistake with them yet.
Point is this-teach them young, don't ever say no when they want to see them. Drop what you are doing and break them out. Spend time with your daughter (mine will be 15 in Dec)it will pay off in the long run.
...Teach her gun safety early, as soon as she knows the difference between a real gun and a toy gun.
..By all means let her (if she so wishes) have all the toy guns she wants and you will allow.
...For Christ's sake don't grab her toy gun and break it if she points it at someone like Kevin did, that's absurd, geez. Kid's will be kid's and play cowboys and injins and robbers etc.
..What fun is a toy gun to a kid if they have to point it and "kapow" a tree???...[;)]
Maybe my point could have been made differently, but I had just warned him not even a half hour before about it.
And he has NEVER made the mistake again!
So I have no regrets about breaking a $5 toy to make him learn that guns in any fashion are no jokeing matter. And I would not hesitate to do the same again.
But...My dad and I had the greatest time making replica wood firearms. We took drawings and scaled them up and then had fun sawing and carving these. Used real screws and some metal for realistic look. Started when I was about 10 and the last one when I was 17.
We made a Colt 1911, Thompson, Garand, Luger, and a BAR and a few more. Really made me apprecaite fireams that much more.
Dad is now gone, but I still have a few of these and will cherish the time we spent working on these.
My kids were tought at a young age about firearm safety, and never picked one up without asking first. They have shot and although neither today are really are into shooting they are aware of firearm safety.
I had toy guns as a child. I played with them. When I got my first BB gun, it was a real gun. I was taught to handle it like a real gun and to never point it at anyone ("You might put an eye out"). I received my first 22 rifle when I was about 8 years old. My 22 stood in the corner of the living room by the front door along with my father's 22 and his 30-30. They were all always loaded. If I wanted to go hunting, I simply told my mother that I was going hunting and I picked up the rifle as I walked out the door. I was fortunate because I could begin hunting with steps of the house. (Nearest neighbor was miles away) I had no trouble differentiating between the "real" guns and the "toy" guns.
I believe that children today are at least as intelligent as I was. I think that they can be taught the difference.
D.
Yes we played with toy guns; yes we had loaded guns in the house. By the time I was 6 I had my own Winchester Model 67A on a gun rack above by bed. Yes it was kept loaded just like every gun in the house. I never grabbed it to go play war, I had toy guns to play with and I was around guns all the time so they did not hold an unhealthy fascination for me. Today I keep some of the .22s (including my old 67) in a glass front gun case that is in my room. That way my kids will be around guns all the time and when they ask a question they are just a turn of a key away.