Toy guns

[Mybatteryisalwayslow]

I saw a child at the park today. Maybe about 8 or 9 years old playing with a toy gun. He was playing nicely, causing no issues, but was pointing his gun about...as you would expect I suppose if you had a toy gun.

It got me thinking. Personally find toy guns distasteful and inappropriate. Especially in a public park. However, I never had a toy gun as a child (bar a water pistol but that's played with more as a get each other wet type thing) so I don't know whether I'm being judgemental. My husband said 'its just a toy - no problem.'

So over to you...
YABU - toy guns are fine, they are just toys
YANBU - inappropriate to play with a toy gun

@ohfook

I fucking hate guns my kids all love them. I quickly realised the more I went on about hating them the more appealing I was making them.

Pretty much the same with me. I hate guns, but my kids wanted to play with them. Mostly water pistols and nerf guns, but also Star Wars guns and so on. In the end I had to admit defeat and go with it. They’re 16 and 12 now and of course they’ve long outgrown toy guns, and neither of them has turned into a gun-wielding psychopath, so my fears were groundless!

FWIW I wouldn't expect anyone else to conform to my "rules" unless they were a child under my care

The wee boy in the park wouldn't have bothered me but I would have noticed.

@Josette77

I think it depends. Where I live the cops were called on a black boy playing with a nerf gun with his friends. So no, my black son has never had toy guns. I think it's a lot easier depending on where you live and if your kids are white.

This is really sad and a very good point. God the world can be a depressing place poor wee boy.

My sons were only interested in playing with guns for a short while, then they moved on to other toys, bows and arrows etc, but once when my younger son was approx 11 yrs old, he and his friends were running round letting off snaps, (some call them caps, you throw them in the floor and they make a noise,) in the woods over the road and someone reported a shotgun being fired, which resulted in the armed police being called out.
It put years on me when they all turned up on my doorstep, To be fair they were ok about it and one of them even showed my son how to fix his bike, but just shows how easily a game can cause a huge misunderstanding.

I disliked guns but my ideas were flipped around when the Manager of my kids nursery told me that although they have a policy of no guns lots of children make them with sticks, wooden spoons and Lego. In fact if they had no materials to make one they just use their fingers. Then at around 6 years old nerf guns became a thing and I resisted but alas have given in.

I don't have a problem with guns at all real or otherwise as long as the person using them is using them properly and on a target. Play water and laser guns are a lot of fun. I loathe big game shooting though and I hate pheasant and grouse shooting, pheasants are the stupidest, loudest birds ever and I can't think why anyone would think it was clever to shoot them. The Glorious 12th is a big date for the estate owners around here, pretentious twats the lot of them.

Ds always had a gun. Even a bit of wood became a gun. No surprise he joined the army at 18.
If nobody was of similar interest where would the country stand?

Gun play in the past made me uncomfortable, so I tried to look at the positive play that comes from it. Role/imaginative play, group play, communication in the game.... Children don't see what we do, they are just fun play items. I would never buy a more realistic gun for my DC but I have no problem with them creating them or water pistols.

I don’t mind toy guns. My kids usually use them/have used them in a role play sense, usually ‘you be x character and I’ll be y’ then re-enacting things they’ve seen on television/super hero films.

Not as keen on toy swords, but only because every time I see a kid with a toy sword it escalates into whacking each other with it.