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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

child pointed toy gun at me

493 replies

morningtoncrescent62 · 03/12/2016 14:14

I know that telling off/not telling off other people's children has been done many times on AIBU. But genuinely not sure whether I was in the wrong here. On the bus this morning, woman got on with two children aged about 5, dressed up, obviously excited about going somewhere. One of the children was dressed as a cowboy, complete with toy gun. I'll admit I hate seeing children playing with guns, but I know not everyone feels the same. They sat behind and across the aisle from me and I was reading a book and trying not to be distracted - they were fairly noisy but not unreasonably so in the circumstances.

A few stops before I was getting off I looked up to find the child with the toy gun pointing it at me and pulling the trigger repeatedly. The woman hadn't seen as she was rootling about in her bag. So I said to the child, not sharply but firmly, 'Please don't point your gun at me, it isn't very nice'. The woman looked up and apologised. Then she took the child on her lap for a cuddle and started a loud conversation with the other one about how adults sometimes talk to children instead of the adult who is with them and this is bad and wrong. Which is OK if it's her position, but nothing at all about how sometimes when you point guns at people and pretend to shoot them they don't like it and they ask you not to. I was tempted to say to her that if her child was too young to be asked by strangers not to point his toy gun at them, then he was too young to be allowed to play with it in a public place - but I was about to get off the bus so I didn't.

So, MN jury, WIBU to speak directly to the child?

OP posts:
Atenco · 03/12/2016 19:20

Shooting strangers on a bus will lead to trouble further down the line. The child won't necessarily become involved in gun crime, but without a doubt they will grow up with the view that a stranger's life is not worth very much. Toy guns today, tragedy tomorrow

Hahahahaha

WeDoNotSow · 03/12/2016 19:24

Maybe it's satire rather than hyperbole?

DotForShort · 03/12/2016 19:27

I would have absolutely no issue with a child dressed as a cowboy BTW. Having lived for some years in a part of the US where actual cowboys are quite common, and where cowboy gear for adults and children alike is entirely unremarkable (this is an area where the schools have rodeo teams alongside their basketball and American football teams), I might have been slightly amused to see an urban British child dressed in such a costume. But I wouldn't have felt outrage or offense. I might have complimented him on his hat or boots.

TheOnlyColditz · 03/12/2016 19:28

Yabu and a pompous arse! You don't get to decide who is and isn't allowed to point inanimate objects at you. I suspect you told the child directly because addressing the mother would have made you feel the absurdity of what was coming out of your mouth.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 03/12/2016 19:37

Gosh it took hours for someone to clutch their pearls about the word nutter. I was expecting the PO to rock up much sooner

I make no apology either 👅

Yawnyawnallday · 03/12/2016 19:39

I would've probably played at being shot and died in a melodramatic manner. I don't like guns as toys but I am old and grew up playing (please forgive me) cowboys and "Indians".
Toy guns would never be a choice for me. I don't think I could change her mind on the bus so I wouldn't bother. If he'd made some racist remark, I would've said something but a toy gun? No.

Carneddai · 03/12/2016 19:55

I'm not a fan of toy guns but from my experience children will make guns out of absolutely anything!... Fingers, sticks, a daffodil!

SemiNormal · 03/12/2016 20:15

I make no apology either I wouldn't expect someone who uses that term to apologise to be honest.

Mynestisfullofempty · 03/12/2016 20:18

Carneddai "I'm not a fan of toy guns but from my experience children will make guns out of absolutely anything!... Fingers, sticks, a daffodil!"

Precisely. Therefore depending on your mood and/or personality you either play along or ignore. Anything else - such as telling the child off and then posting a thread on the internet about it - is just completely ludicrous. The child wasn't in the OP's face, he was sitting behind her and across the aisle with his mother, so extremely easy for her to ignore and carry on reading her book.
The posts saying that she had a gun pointed at her and so was understandably upset or annoyed are also ludicrous. It wasn't a gun, it was a toy, . It could have been "Fingers, sticks, a daffodil". Talk about making a big deal out of a non-event!

WeDoNotSow · 03/12/2016 20:22

OP probably kept looking behind her waiting for an opportunity to voice her anti gun rhetoric anyway

spicyfajitas · 03/12/2016 20:24

I always ask the child. How odd to speak through the parent instead. I would have said, ' I don't like it'. Rather than its not very nice. It's not very nice is a completely subjective judgment. Some people would be happy to have a child attempting to interact with them and don't mind guns.

If I'd been the mum i'd have reinforced what you'd asked and said 'best not to point your gun at people. Some people really don't like it' .

Suppermummy02 · 03/12/2016 20:26

Has anyone EVER in the UK seen or heard of someone suffering from PTSD that freaked out at a 5 yo dressed as a cowboy with a plastic gun?

I have heard and met parents that have stories of their children being affected by strange adults telling them NOT to play, its not NICE.

Who is really vulnerable here?

CupofTeaTime · 03/12/2016 20:33
Biscuit
StrangeLookingParasite · 03/12/2016 20:34

I'm not a fan of toy guns but from my experience children will make guns out of absolutely anything!... Fingers, sticks, a daffodil!

My sister did no guns with her two boys so her younger son bit his toast into the shape of a gun.

Sprinklestar · 03/12/2016 20:37

I live in the US, here there's always the chance the gun isn't a toy...

Silvercatowner · 03/12/2016 20:37

Has anyone mentioned 'We don't play with guns here' by Penny Holland? A really interesting read. There is no evidence of a link between gun play and violent behaviour in later life, plenty of research evidence that gun play can be therapeutic.

SleepyRoo · 03/12/2016 20:38

I would've said same thing OP, & I have a 5 yr old. Parent should have been keeping a closer eye on kid.

Silvercatowner · 03/12/2016 20:40

Has anyone EVER in the UK seen or heard of someone suffering from PTSD that freaked out at a 5 yo dressed as a cowboy with a plastic gun?

As with everyone who is my age and over, I grew up with fathers and grandfathers who served in the world wars and who were almost universally traumatised by their experiences. Yet all small boys and many girls played with guns - toy guns were in shops and were a normal plaything. I don't remember any of the older menfolk expressing any discomfort of reservation.

Mynestisfullofempty · 03/12/2016 20:41

SleepyRoo Why? In case he killed someone?

WeDoNotSow · 03/12/2016 20:49

Sleepy Parent did nothing wrong, in terms of monitoring her child's behaviour.
OP said kids were not being particularly loud, so in the mums eyes, he's just playing nicely in his costume.
OP didn't notice what he was doing, until she, of her own free will and without any encouragement from the child, swivelled her head to look behind her at him.
What should the mum have done?

TheSnorkMaidenReturns · 03/12/2016 20:49

I have no issue with kids playing with guns at all. I think Penny Holland makes a persuasive case. I have boys and would probably have made dramatic death noise if a 5 year old had pointed a gun at me. But you don't find it funny so YANBU to say something directly to the child, as long as you are polite, and it sounds as if you were. You've already realised you could phrase it better, but that's life, isn't it? We can't all come out with the right words every time.
The mother's PA response is pathetic. A better response would have been to say 'please don't point your gun at people you don't know as it upsets some people'. At five a child is old enough to know that some of their interactions with other people won't go down well. Whether or not that's because the other people are mean/boring/unreasonable is neither here nor there.
I speak directly to children because I think they deserve to be treated as humans in their own right. A kid was kicking me in the cinema the other week. I asked her nicely twice and the third time I made sure I caught the parent's eye (she was several seats away without long line of kids) as I was firmer. I wasn't rude and the child changed her behaviour.
I really think it's bonkers that adults addressing children directly is somehow wrong. They are part of our society not appendages of their parents.

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 03/12/2016 20:58

Call the police GrinGrin

SemiNormal · 03/12/2016 21:14

Has anyone EVER in the UK seen or heard of someone suffering from PTSD that freaked out at a 5 yo dressed as a cowboy with a plastic gun? - No, that's not to say that it hasn't or wouldn't happen. Though I do think perhaps a young refugee fleeing war from certain countries may find it more than a bit upsetting.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 03/12/2016 21:18

You should have logged it with 101 op. Just to be on the safe side.

Oblomov16 · 03/12/2016 21:21

YABU. I don't really understand the opposition to toy guns. I'm not convinced dressing up in a cowboy costume and playing with a toy gun, leads to violent crimes and shooting someone in RL.

If a child on a bus did this to me, I would have laughed, pretended to die, or used my fingers and shot him right back.

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