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allow toy guns for your kids?

goldeneagle76goldeneagle76 Member Posts: 4,359
edited May 2007 in General Discussion
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

  • ElMuertoMonkeyElMuertoMonkey Member Posts: 12,898
    edited November -1
    Hmm... good question. Gun safety can never be taken too seriously, but is it too much to apply that to other gun-like items?

    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.
  • nemesisenforcernemesisenforcer Member Posts: 10,513 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I had toy guns, cap guns, water guns, starter pistols, Nerf guns, potato guns, and every other kind of gun growing up. I got my first BB/pellet gun at age 4 or 5. My dad had a G3 that I knew how to fieldstrip when I was 3 years old. Got my first 22s about 8 or 9. I was taught from day one that things like water guns, noise-making guns and potato guns were OK to shoot at other people, but not anything else, including my BB gun. Got in trouble a couple of times for even firing it when someone else was downrange, far from the path of the projectile. My dad took me shooting all the time and taught me gun and range safety, as I plan on doing when I have children.

    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.
  • Jacob2008Jacob2008 Member Posts: 19,528 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    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
  • Ray BRay B Member Posts: 11,822
    edited November -1
    Playing Cowboy & Indians was an acceptable activity when I was young- about fifty years ago. I don't see the world getting any safer because it's no longer politically correct.
  • KSUmarksmanKSUmarksman Member Posts: 10,705 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was intelligent enough to know the difference between a toy gun and a real, deadly weapon.
    If my future kids can't tell that difference, I must have some stupid wife in my future [:D]
  • JamesRKJamesRK Member Posts: 25,670 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Your mother never let you have guns, but I'd bet money you and your friends came up with some sort of substitute and played with your homemade toy guns anyway. Kids are going to do what kids do.

    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.
    The road to hell is paved with COMPROMISE.
  • zipperzapzipperzap Member Posts: 25,057
    edited November -1
    quote:Jacob2008:

    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]
  • Sig220_Ruger77Sig220_Ruger77 Member Posts: 12,748 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I played with toy guns, squirt guns and all of that fun stuff when I was a kid. Yes, me and my brother and friends played "cowboys and indians" and "cops and robbers" with them. When I got my first pellet gun, I knew better then to point that one at a person. In my case, as well as my brothers, pointing toy guns at people never affected us, we are extremely safe with real firearms.

    Jon
  • BHAVINBHAVIN Member Posts: 3,490 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    We had toy guns and even made guns. We had a neighbor lady that would not let her kids have anything that was even close. Funny her kids ran around pointing their fingers and picking up sticks to use as guns. Kids are going to be kids. Showing them what is dangerous and what isn't and helping progress common sense is the key IMO.
  • n/an/a Member Posts: 168,427
    edited November -1
    My kids are allowed toy guns but are NEVER to point them at anyone. I do make an exception to water guns as long as the person being soaked down knows before hand that it will be comming (ie: no surprise soakings)

    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.
  • Hunter MagHunter Mag Member Posts: 6,611 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Let them do what they wish with the toy guns. Kids are smart and know more than you think they do. I played good guys and bad guys with my son and some neighbor kids. When my son got old enough for real guns he knew not to touch them, and didn't even when I said it was ok. BTW he was a really good shot right from the get go too. With the real thing. F the politically correct crap.

    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.
  • GUNFUNCOGUNFUNCO Member Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I agree with others. I played with toy guns and even made a toy long gun out of a piece of pine and an old kitchen broom handle.

    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.
  • tobefreetobefree Member Posts: 7,401
    edited November -1
    Heavens no... I collect toy guns too... There mine, mine, all mine!!!!!
  • COLTCOLT Member Posts: 12,637 ******
    edited November -1
    ...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???...[;)]

    ani-texas-flag-1.gif
  • codenamepaulcodenamepaul Member Posts: 2,931
    edited November -1
    I did not allow toy guns in my home. I did not want there to be any mistake that any gun getting picked up was real and would destroy anything it was pointed at.

    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.
  • rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    You may have heard this story from me before, but it's worth repeating in the context of this thread: When my younger grandson was 3 and in pre-school, the kids in the class had, among other toys, some fake fruit to play with -- apples, oranges and such. The teacher eventually had to remove the bananas because the 3-year-old boys were using them as toy guns to shoot each at other. The moral of the story is that boys (and many girls) are going to be interested in guns because they see them on TV, etc. IMHO, it's better to teach them that guns are a fact of life and must be used responsibly under proper conditions, which includes knowing the difference between real guns and toys and where they may or may not be pointed. I grew up in the 1950s, an era in which a week of prime-time TV on the three networks included as many as 39 different Westerns. Everybody played with toy guns, but no one I knew grew up to be a criminal-type shooter. The key to gun safety is education, not prohibition.
  • n/an/a Member Posts: 168,427
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by COLT
    ...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???...[;)]

    ani-texas-flag-1.gif
    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.
  • dan55362dan55362 Member Posts: 709 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Now this is what is wrong with society now days. Let kids be kids all to often adults over think things about what kids play with, it may be toy guns or even a toy that a lot of kids like and adults take it away and put it on ebay because its now popular and worth money. I was at my sons Christmas play at school and one kid had toy space type pistol that had lights and a speaker that beep beep beep and the teachers went nuts. I had to laugh when they gave the kids big plastic candy canes for the play, the kids used these as guns and had a fun time playing cowboys and native Americans. With all the nagging about what kids play with, or the type of games the shouldn't pay (dodge ball, king of the hill, Smear the queer, ect, ect ,ect.) Its no wonder that a majority of our young are growing up to be future LIBERALS. I let my kids play war and other gun games, they point toy guns at each other thats part of the game. My kids also go shooting real guns and they know how to handle a real gun safely and with respect. Bottom line is let your kids be kids, they know the difference between play and reality.
  • hoosierhoosier Member Posts: 1,503 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Mom wouldn't allow real fireams in the house. She just wasn't comfortable with them. Dad had to keep his Browning 22 at a friends house.

    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.
    Magazines, Gun Parts and More. US Army Veteran, VFW, NRA Patron
  • wtroperwtroper Member Posts: 736 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I do not see the problem. I grew up with guns in the house --- always loaded guns. My father believed that an unloaded gun was only a club. I cannot remember not having loaded guns in the house. I also was taught not to play with them.

    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.
  • Colt SuperColt Super Member Posts: 31,007
    edited November -1
    Too bad that intelligence is not always an inherited trait.

    D.
  • Mk 19Mk 19 Member Posts: 8,170
    edited November -1
    When I was a kid we never played "Cowboys and Indians", we played "Kill the Japs", the poor Pilipino kid down the street was always the Jap[:0]

    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.
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