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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Toy guns

40 replies

thegreylady · 09/06/2014 20:58

My dd's mil has given dgs aged 5 and 7 a box of their dad's old toys and, of course the lads are delighted. There are cars, Star Wars stuff, Lego...and two snub nosed revolvers which are horribly realistic. I ahve asked the boys not to play with them (the guns) while I am there.
I don't mind, space guns, nerf guns, light sabres and plastic swords but these things look so menacing.
Dsil laughed at me but said that when I am looking after the boys my rules apply and neither boy minds. But AIBU?

OP posts:

ICanSeeTheSun · 09/06/2014 21:07

Children make guns out of anything.

Ds recently used my French stick which was for dinner ( to go with soup) for a gun.

The rule here is it doesn't matter if it is a toy gun you don't pretend to shoot people.

Canus · 09/06/2014 21:08

In your own home you can do as you please, and your rules apply.

It would be unreasonable to ask them not to play with their guns in their own home, where the parent's rules apply.

The guns won't do you any harm, and they won't harm the children.

Sirzy · 09/06/2014 21:08

Well if there parents are there then I don't think its your place to tell them what they can and can't play with.

If you are looking after them then you can stop it more - but really why bother?

Personally I am not a fan of toy guns at all and won't be encourging them into the house, but DS (4) has already realised that sticks make great guns so I realise its a losing battle!

Joules68 · 09/06/2014 21:10

What are you scared of happening?

LindaMcCartneySausage · 09/06/2014 21:19

"What are you afraid of"

I'm from Dumblane. I know why I don't like my DCs playing with realistic looking guns.

My two point sticks at each other and shout "pow, pow!". You can't stop it easily.

WorraLiberty · 09/06/2014 21:27

Are they really going to be playing with them in your presence often enough for it to really make a difference to you?

I'm sure you don't want to become 'that sort of gran', that your family end up treading on eggshells around.

They are your grand children, they like playing with toy guns. Perhaps you should accept them for who they are/how they are.

wobblyweebles · 09/06/2014 22:07

I am against adults owning actual guns that can kill people but toy guns are fine.

AryaOfHouseSnark · 09/06/2014 22:20

I have always been quite conflicted about toy guns, my brother and I used to play with toy guns as children, and it was ok back then, but cultures seem to have changed and guns don't seem acceptable as toys anymore. I don't think I want my dc playing with them, but I can't really pinpoint why.

Have you seen the film Rec it Ralph ? They're is a sequence in there where children play a shooting game, there are around 5 mins where guns are used to shoot giant bugs.

This is relevant, I'm not just babbling.
So a few weeks after watching one of my 3 yo Dts comes up to me with a stick and says " I am going to bugger you Mummy"
I did this and assumed I had misheard,but no he confirmed that he wanted to bugger me.
I asked what he meant and he said " I am going to bugger you with my stick"
He then pointed it and me and said " I will bugger you like in rec it Ralph"
The shooting sequence was really only 5 mins in the whole of the film, it's probably the only film where they have seen anything like it, but for some reason they really like it.
So in our house we have bugger sticks, not guns, I am not too sure which is worse tbh. Or to approach how gums and violence are bad, is that something that most children will learn ?

lljkk · 09/06/2014 22:22

I think those 2 guns would quietly find their way to the bin, if in my household. I am pretty relaxed but quite realistic-looking guns unnerve me.

I come from a place where people get shot by police for having realistic looking toy guns.

Pipbin · 09/06/2014 22:25

I don't think you are allowed to have realistic looking toy guns anymore. IIRC don't the ends have to be painted orange now?

TalisaMaegyr · 09/06/2014 22:28

LindaMcCartneySausage, you spelt the name of your hometown wrong!

AryaOfHouseSnark · 09/06/2014 22:28

Sorry ignore my whole babling post. I have had and missed that they were really realistic.

Yy, I do think the ends have to be painted orange, or at least have a cheap orange plastic cover.

latika · 09/06/2014 22:30

When my son was born, I decided that there would be no guns or 'violent' toys in the house. Fast forward a few years and he was making guns out of toilet roll holders, Lego sticks and anything he could get his hands on! I eventually gave in and bought him guns and a holster although I was loathe to do it. Totally understand your feelings - lots of people thought I was being overly anal but I hate seeing little children playing with guns. He's grown up into a real actively normal teenager with no ill effects!

WallyBantersJunkBox · 09/06/2014 22:55

It would have been a bit hypocritical of me to ban toy guns as my husband was a soldier.

But I know what you mean. Boys play with them mindlessly and the games can sound awful. They just don't put the reality of killing together with the gun.

The other day my DS saw something on youtube from a James Bond film and immediately got upset at the thought of someone dying horribly. I tried to explain that this was the outcome of shooting.

5 minutes later he's pow pow powing upstairs.

Our rules are - you never point a gun at a person, especially at their face. If the play gets too crazy the guns go on top of the wardrobe for a week.

Catsize · 09/06/2014 23:18

YAnBU but then I am bothered by water pistols that look like guns

VonHerrBurton · 09/06/2014 23:29

My son is over playing with toy guns now. When he did, he had a very good friend who's mother absolutely forbid it - at home, at friends' houses, be it plastic guns or sticks.

He had sleepovers here regularly and out of respect for his mum's wishes,
frankly I was a bit scared of her I encouraged the boys to play other games.

What made me laugh, however, was seeing the poor kid make a 'gun' from a piece of toast at breakfast time!

MrsCakesPremonition · 09/06/2014 23:31

I went to an exhibition about War Games at the V&A Museum of Childhood last year. It changed my ideas about the acceptability of toy guns. I've become much more tolerant of my DCs unending desire to point at each other (with almost anything that comes to hand) and shout "pow".
They are now moving on to archery - which appears to be more benign, but has actually resulted in some pretty gruesome and gory explanations.

SixImpossible · 09/06/2014 23:36

I do not allow toy guns. If the dc make a gun then I call it creative play, and allow it. But not ready-made guns. However, they have received gun toys as gifts from people, and I decided that my anti-toy-gun convictions were weaker than my treat-friends-courteously convictions. The rule here is that guns are target practice only. If anyone, guest or dc, points a gun at anyone else, they are confiscated for the rest of the day.

My conviction comes from two things: (1) having, myself, learned to shoot a variety of weapons, and seen the appalling violence and damage they cause, and (2) having witnessed someone accidentaly pistol whip their friend, because, having played with toy guns and watched films, they thought they knew what they were doing.

If my dc want to use guns, I have no objection to them learning properly at a well-run shooting range, where they can learn what a gun truly is, and treat it with the proper 'respect'.

thegreylady YANBU. In any case: your house, your rules. Children learn easily that there can be different rules at granma's.

DogCalledRudis · 10/06/2014 07:24

Yabu. Its just toys.

Deverethemuzzler · 10/06/2014 07:33

My DCs have never been allowed guns.
They don't seem emotionally scarred nor has their creativity been crushed.

I don't want my kids to play with toy guns so they don't.

Sometimes they will make a toy gun out of lego and we talk about why guns are not toys and what guns are for.

I remember one bloke who disapproved of this PC madness and said I should let them play with guns because 'they are gonna have to deal with them when they are older anyway'

Yeah, what a twat I am, not preparing my mixed race, urban boys for their inevitable Thug Life.

I don't care what other people do. I just don't want my boys playing with the toy version of something with only one purpose, to kill things.

caruthers · 10/06/2014 07:52

Two of my nieces (Both under 5) spent all day yesterday making guns out of lego and shooting each other with them.

Where have the bow and arrows gone to?

thebodylovesspring · 10/06/2014 07:53

Playing with you guns is one thing but I would worry if they were quite realistic. Weren't armed police called to an 7 year old and friends as someone reported seeing them with guns in Liverpool.

caruthers · 10/06/2014 07:56

Playing with you guns is one thing but I would worry if they were quite realistic. Weren't armed police called to an 7 year old and friends as someone reported seeing them with guns in Liverpool.

To be fair the police tazed a blind man who's walking stick looked like a samurai sword last year.

They can and often do do idiotic things.

youbethemummylion · 10/06/2014 08:01

How do you accidentally pistol whip someone?! Or have I got the wrong end of the stick. I thought pistol whipping was where you hit soneone with the butt of the gun.

PrincessBabyCat · 10/06/2014 08:11

Yeah, careful if they look realistic. Kids here in the US have been shot by the police for playing with realistic toy guns that parents thought would be fun to paint the orange stub. Of course, being kids and not making good decisions they aimed it at the cops too.

Anyway, your house, your rules.

DD probably won't get any toy guns considering schools here have expelled a kindergartner for saying she wanted to shoot bubbles at her friend with her Hello Kitty bubble gun. It's a good thing they did too, she might have shot up the school the next day.

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