Do all 5-year-old boys play with 'guns'!?

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My son started taking an interest in guns when he was 3...boys will be boys, hes now 13 and in the cadets which he loves..they have the shooting range which he also finds very intersting, we have never had any trouble with him, he doesnt have a bad bone in him, when look around and see the other 13-15 year olds they hang around streets stabbing people, taking drugs and drinking, so i do not have any problems with kids having toy guns, as long as they are told that toy guns are fine real ones are dangerouse!!

My little boy is 6, hes not so much into guns but swords and bow and arrows... hes been like it for a few years now, also loves play fighting with his dad, brother and friends. Id prefer him not to and Ive really discouraged it but its what he enjoys doing at the moment. He knows that guns and weapons are wrong and the dangers of them.

mine is siz and he doesn't

My ds, 4 tomorrow, "shot" my friend a few days ago. She good humouredly "died" and was told by him "it's only a toy". When boys 'shoot' each other no-one dies. There are no guns in this house and as I am a pre-school worker I am aware of the "acceptable" ideas of play but somewhere, somehow ds know about guns.

Nope
Well I have had one boy and he never did, as far as I cna recall he has never even made anything out to be a gun or pretended at all...
I think he lives vicariously through his ps2 games but he only started playing them aged 7-8 and has not really had shoot em up games...

DD & DS have both had various guns , mostly water pistols, but neither has ever been really interested in using them in role play, only in using the water pistols to actually soak each other. DD has a PS2, but has mostly bought football games for it, with a few driving types & some 'target shooting' type like Fantavision - not the real life shooting games, even tho' he's now 18 & could buy them for himself.
It's possible that he never really got into the gun game thing because he developed a passion for football at the age of 5, which he still has

My DS1 aged 4 has actually asked where to shoot to kill " if you got shot in the finger, would it kill you?", and " if you get shot in the head, would that kill you?"

On the positive side, we learn a bit of biology !

It is just play and curiousness, and I am not at all worried.

I would rather talk about violence aged 4, than never at all.

Better out than in and better talked about than not at all !

not read the whole thread yet.

My DS1 is 5 - just started year1 - he picks up a lot of that sort of thing from school - shooting thinks, and even yesterday threatening to stick something in his brother's eye (even in jest I told him no in no uncertain terms !).

He and his twin brothers (3.75) do not gravitate to that sort of thing on their own - they are much more tractor oriented - but presumably at least a large proportion of the boys at school do and I guess I have to get used to it - but I don't have to like it.

apparently Daniel and Nicholas have been told by the headmisterss not to play guns in the classroom

No, well brought up sons of Guardian readers play with gnus.

Seriously, mine are so non-violent that DS2's set of Playmobil knights spent several weeks drinking beer and boasting before even attempting negotiations with the local dragon.

This thread made me smile because I took dd to the cinema today and she was messng around with some games machines before we went in, one of which had a huge gun attached to it. I turned round from chatting to a friend to find her holding it to her head making a humming noise and saying 'look at my hairdryer mum!'

Yet she has picked up a concept of 'shooting' from school, films etc. And she knows guns are 'dangerous.'

I have to say though that my immediate (fleeting) reaction when I saw her with a 'gun' to her head was total panic.

My DS1 wants a BB gun. I have told him that he is not old enough. There no-way hes going to get 1 ever!! He said theres a boy at school who has got 1. I dont like guns! and I dont do guns! I wont even let DC have little toy ones.

No, my 5 yr old doesn't. He is the eldest of my 3 boys - we don't have any gun toys atm.

I know some of his friends have war type toys but we just don't happen to have anything like that.

I don't like replica guns. I find them intimidating.

Ds got very very upset last week at a p/t type group when an older child (6 or 7) pointed a replica gun at him and started "shooting". He found it intimidating, I think. Mum stood by and smiled fondly at her reassuringly masculine boy.

(possibly did not help that ds was wearing pink butterfly sandals and carrying his baby boy doll in a pouch sling, but hey, its a group for weirdos anyway )

I do feel that some parents (I'm sure no-one on this thread ) tend to smile indulgently and say "oh, boys will be boys" once the guns come out, rather than properly monitoring their behaviour.

Ds went to Laserquest for a party yesterday and I can honestly say that was his first experience of "shooting" anyone. He's 12 next month. I've never even seen his friends play with guns when they come round.

(Twiglett, d'ya still love me?)

Laserquest is fab