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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:
Floggingmolly · 03/12/2016 14:59

But you still haven't explained why you'd be upset/scared by a toy gun, op...
He was a little kid, there was absolutely no chance you thought it was real.

ItsALLAboutMeMeMeMeME · 03/12/2016 15:02

Should have made a pretend gun with your hand and returned fire, I would have, then put up my pretend pistol and blown away the pretend smoke.

You clearly don't approve of toy guns and that is your right but it doesn't give you the right to chastise other people's children for doing nothing more than pretend playing as long they're not physically touching you. Agree with pps, if you had to voice your disapproval, (which, really, you didn't other than for the purposes of anti-firearmist virtue signaling) you should have addressed the mother.

Pagwatch · 03/12/2016 15:02

I never let my boys have guns but dear lord, what a fuss about a child playing.

paxillin · 03/12/2016 15:02

I hate toy guns and I do tell kids who play-kill me.

I live in an area where fun-shooting just isn't the done thing, because we have had a few real ones in the past.

DoinItFine · 03/12/2016 15:06

But you still haven't explained why you'd be upset/scared by a toy gun, op...

It doesn't matter.

The person sitting next to her on a bus was pointing a toy gun at her face and she didn't like it.

So she asked him to.stop and he did.

The End.

BratFarrarsPony · 03/12/2016 15:06

exactly she doesnt have to 'explain' does she?

GahBuggerit · 03/12/2016 15:08

i dont know what id have done but i think the mum was rightbto handle it how she did without causing more of a scene. the sort of person who would have a go at a little child in front of the mum over a toy gun is definitely the sort of person i wouldnt want to directly 'handle' and she apologised and got her point across without poking the situation.

TheGruffaloMother · 03/12/2016 15:09

They sat behind and across the aisle from me

So let's stop pretending the child was next to the OP, yeah? That would be different.

Suppermummy02 · 03/12/2016 15:10

We dont live in America.

Chill out, you own that child an apology.

Handsoffmysweets · 03/12/2016 15:12

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request

Diemfdie · 03/12/2016 15:12

Yanbu... in talking to a child in a public place where it's mother could hear what was happening (but was busy). When did it become a rule that you can't talk to kids? As long as you were polite, that is a great learning experience for the child - who was trying to interact with you.

The mum's loud summary of it sounds a bit weird. Why wouldn't she talk to you? Is that also not allowed? Hashtag mystified!

Diemfdie · 03/12/2016 15:13

Its mother!!!!! (Sorry).

Justaboy · 03/12/2016 15:14

Well you could see it was a child so;!

Fear not any legit use of guns in the UK will invariably see that child or whoever have some training with what to do and what not to do with guns.

OTOH a hoodie in the bad lands of Brixton and some other places then best to duck behind whatever cover you can get!"!

SenecaFalls · 03/12/2016 15:14

Also it depends where you have lived.

I'm in the US. I would have said something to the child. Where I live, pointing any kind of gun at someone is very serious business.

Original poster
morningtoncrescent62 · 03/12/2016 15:15

But you still haven't explained why you'd be upset/scared by a toy gun, op

I'm sorry, I didn't realise I'd been asked. I wasn't scared, but I do find it upsetting to see children playing with replicas of what in real life are lethal weapons intended to kill and maim. I don't like seeing guns being normalised and I can't find it cute or funny when someone of any age points a toy gun at me and pulls the trigger, even if they can't possibly do me any harm.

OP posts:
Floggingmolly · 03/12/2016 15:16

He was behind her, DoinIt. He couldn't possibly have been pointing it at her face...

If she didn't approve of him playing with a gun (like it was any of her business) she could have kept her gaze to the front instead of rubbernecking to see what everyone else was doing.

sleepy16 · 03/12/2016 15:17

If the child had the toy gun right pressing into my face or touching me then I would of kindly asked the child to not do that.
But if it's just literally holding it up to play then that wouldn't bother me and I would probably play along.
If an adult asked my child not to play then I would think it was rather silly, but would leave it as that.

BratFarrarsPony · 03/12/2016 15:17

" We dont live in America.

Chill out, you own that child an apology. "

no we don't live in America but some of us live / have lived in certain urban areas where toy/replica guns are just not that funny.
NO she does not 'own' that child an apology, all she did was speak to it...and ask it to behave in a way that did not upset people around it.

Bagina · 03/12/2016 15:18

The problem is parents not teaching kids that guns are abhorrent. I wouldn't let mine take one out in public.

The same weekend at the Bataclan shootings we saw two children of about 9 with toy rifles over their shoulders with their parents in public. Me and dh just stared at each other aghast. I mean what planet were these arsehole parents on???

Guns are not cool, kids!

GahBuggerit · 03/12/2016 15:19

doesnt sound like op was polite though to me, not to a 5 year old. if op simply had to say something because she was concerned that a bullet of 100% pure air may actually come out of the toy gun then a pretend smiley/grimace type face and a "oooo i dont like that kiddo there must be another baddie around instead" and return to the book would have sufficed.

Happyoutlook · 03/12/2016 15:20

First off it's a toy, he was playing and probably to young to understand. We like in the USA and kids round here are taught proper gun control and respect

Bagina · 03/12/2016 15:21

Oh, and YANBU. You weren't rude. His mum hadn't stopped him, so you were fine to ask him to stop politely. I would've tried a death stare first, then asked him to stop. I wouldn't have liked it either, op.

SenecaFalls · 03/12/2016 15:22

I wouldn't have been concerned about being polite. If parents aren't going to teach children that they shouldn't point guns at random strangers, then it's fine for the random stranger to do it.

DailyCRAPMail · 03/12/2016 15:26

I wish these interesting things happened to me when I catch the bus. I always amazed at these Mumsnet bus stories. The more dirty looks and muttering the betterWink

Doowappydoo · 03/12/2016 15:26

I don't see the problem with what you did: mine have toy guns, when he was 4 my DS used to burst into our room every morning and pretend to shoot us in our bed got quite wearing tbh I wouldn't have let him point one at strangers on the bus though and think it's fine to politely ask a child not to do something as long as you weren't aggressive or too harsh. She was a bit of dick with all the passive aggressive talking through the child stuff but she was probably embarrassed.