To wish that kids' attractions wouldn't sell toy guns?

[CruCru]

At a local kids' attraction, there is an area called "Cowboy Town" which sells toy guns. I wish they didn't, when it is busy it is full of kids pointing the things at each other's (and strangers') faces and popping away.

They also sell firecracker-lites (really, really small firecrackers).

I get that I don't have to buy the things (and I don't) but the fact that other people buy them sort of spoils that area for us.

Am I being a misery?

Yes, you are.

It's 'cowboy town' what did you expect? Bet they have bows and arrows too.

It's called Cowboy Town, honestly what do you expect?

You go to 'Cowboy town' and expect a ban on guns?

Fair enough. I'll try to embrace the cowboyness of it a bit more. IAB a bit U.

Its like going to a farm and objecting to animal poo

Go else where

I don't agree with toy guns at all under any circumstances. I find it hard to understand why anyone thinks toy guns are appropriate to be honest. I make an exception for water pistols but I can't really articulate why it's different.

YA NBU!!

Are Nerf guns the sort that shoot foam balls? I don't mind those, I think it's because they don't look like real guns.

I don't see the issue with toy guns, we raised 3 ds's who didn't have develop pyschopathic tendencies as a result of playing with them.

I do not see a problem. Little boys will always play with them.

Little boys will always play with them.

So will girls.

Where is this place? Sounds like the kind of place my dcs would like. We are a nerf gun fight kind of house though too.

Cowboy town is all about the 'wild west', shoot outs, cowboy training, quick draw shooting skills, bank robberies, jail breaks etc.

YANBU to not like guns, but YABVU to go to cowboy town and not want see cowboy style 'real' guns being shown and played with in context.

It's Blackgang Chine in the IoW. Apart from the guns, a lovely place to go with kids.

Well Cowboy Town also has a saloon, a jail, wagons and horses to climb on. Plus some miners' tunnels to crawl through.

I don't like toy guns either (at all - they aren't allowed in our house). But this is probably the one place where it would be odd if they weren't on sale

Cowboy town sounds quite fun.
Guns are an integral part of all things 'cowboy', as are horses, Indians, bows and arrows, scalping people, salloons, tumbleweed and all the rest of it.
If any of that makes you uncomfortable then maybe you just 'aint a cowboy!

FWIW I don't really like toy guns either, I was never allowed them and nor are my kids.
Although, unlike most parents I ban them because I think they promote a lax attitude to gun safety when handling the real thing later in life.

I KNEW you'd be talking about Blackgang Chine! I love it there, it hasn't changed a bit since I visited in the 80's as a child, and that's why I love it.

Cowboy town would be rubbish without the cap guns, and holding up the bank was the highlight of my dc's holiday.

I'm not sure what else you'd expect it to be like tbh - when in Rome....

No toy guns in this house but only because they have never been requested. When the DDs are old enough I will take them shooting with the real thing.

Lol at nerf guns being ok cos they don't look like guns.... But bullets are bullets and do what bullets do!

Foam bullets are big though. Plus Nerf guns don't usually get pointed right in someone's face.

I think what unnerves me with toy guns is not when children are playing cops and robbers together but when a child is coming up to strangers and "shooting" them. Just got back from holiday and a child was going along the sun loungers of strangers, putting the gun to their forehead shooting and going "you, you, not you" this child was maybe 4 or 5.

Gun play should be restricted to gun games (same principle as water guns/bombs) - you only use them with people who you have agreed to play with.