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?

[KittyLovesPaintingOhYes]

Yeah, I find toy guns depressing, and watching DS shooting little DD even more so while shouting die die die, and have never actualy bought any so he makes his guns out of Lego...

[CruCru]

Don't you find the cap guns noisy?

[Nicola19]

I am the proud owner of two cap guns for my girls, purchased in black gang chine last month, they love them!!

[piechuck]

I thought it would be black gang chine, we went last year and felt the same as you OP (on holiday from an area where teen gangs regularly shoot each other for real), I just don't see that's it necessary to sell real looking weapons to little kids.

Sense of humour failure from me too - yanbu

[Lurkedforever1]

Toy guns don't bother me. Dd had a BB gun when she was about 6. not to mention bows and arrows, nerf guns, toy swords, a wooden toy rifle etc. kids playing with toy guns doesn't bother me at all tbh

[meglet]

I assumed Blackgang Chine had all fallen into the sea by now! it was hanging on when I was a kid in the 80's.

[TheRealAmyLee]

Man I just had a major flashback when you said Blackgang Chine. I LOVED that place as a kid!

I don't buy any gun that looks real although we do have nerf and water guns.

I think in cowboy town you just have to go with it... Plus most of those guns have been there 30 years!

[HighwayDragon]

My daughter turned her barbie into a gun earlier, she was shooting zombie ponies. We break down gender stereotypes here

[namelessposter]

Blackgang Chine is the best theme park in the uk. It was true in 1983, and it's still true now.

[starlight2007]

I had too have a look at it via google as never heard of it...looks fab.

I decided not to buy my Ds guns till he wanted them..He watched Peter pan and then immediately wanted a sword and a gun.

I think the idea of not expecting guns to be on sale in cowboy land is bizairre

[Pastamancer]

DD1 made a gun out of her duplo one day, I assume she had been playing guns at nursery as she hadn't mentioned them before.

[SaucyJack]

I bleddy love Black Gang Chine!

It's brilliant. There are loads of saloon/coach and horses/olde worlders jails set up with life size models that you run in and out of and throw "bangers" or shot cap guns at for anyone who hasn't been.

BGC is like the land that time forgot.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

Magimedi actually, ime, nowhere near as many girls as boys will make a gun out of almost anything.

[fabuLou]

Your joking of course

[greenhill]

What about the National Trust and English Heritage selling weapons?

My DC have bows and arrows, Roman swords, shields and helmets and Viking helmets etc. Some are wooden, some are plastic.

[SacredHeart]

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.

[CruCru]

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

[AnyoneForTennis]

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

[Pastamancer]

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.

[Jojay]

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....

[maninawomansworld]

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.

[CloserToFiftyThanTwenty]

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