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Original poster

What's your view on toy guns?

56 replies

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 10/04/2008 16:10

My 3 year old DS loves them, much to our dismay! He pretends things are guns in play, and loves going to a friend's house where they play with the friend's toy guns.

He also loves pirates and I found a cheap pirate's gun in Woolies today for 99p and, inspired by the entertaining vision of him and said mate running around screaming exuberently "peow peow" at each other, I bought it. Haven't given it to him yet, and my DP thinks I'm mad and doesn't want me to.

However, can't deny that DS is interested in and curious about them (despite DP saying "guns are horrible. I don't like them!" DS just says "Well, I like them!").

I kind of feel he may as well outgrow them as a toy (as me and many of my peers did in the 70s), rather than deny him something he's interested in, so his intetrest becomes covert.

I mean, where does it stop? Stop him from wearing a pirtate's outfit cos they are sword-weilding bandits?

Liberal confusion! Please help.

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Original poster

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 10/04/2008 16:40

We live in area of London where there has been (comparatively) lots of gun crime directed towards teenage boys. Another reason DP thinks it's made to 'normalise' guns for DS. I think perhaps if he 'gets them out of his system', when he's older he may be far less curious about picking up the real thing if one is brought into his circle.

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MissPaulaYates · 10/04/2008 16:40

as for the ' making' weapons' out of sticks toast whatever...i am sure they have but barely recall it.....

you do not have to 'get used to it' there are plenty of other games to play

francagoestohollywood · 10/04/2008 16:41

I've never bought a toy gun to ds. Who makes them out of anything, especially duplo. Being a snob tough, I bought him a wooden sword, given that when he was three he became fascinated by king arthur after a visit in tintagel...

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MissPaulaYates · 10/04/2008 16:42

(ooh i love Tintagel!)

LilyMunster · 10/04/2008 16:45

i do get the normalise theory...

but someone once won me round with the 'helps them explore emotions and cause and effect safe in context of play' theory... or something like that.

on here. i started a thread about my dss and warhammer. i was convinced. and ive been v anti them all my life (my little bro pointing them at me used to make me livid)

Original poster

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 10/04/2008 16:45

Paula Y, do your boys like guns?

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Original poster

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 10/04/2008 16:46

Yes, that "helps them explore emotions and cause and effect safe in context of play' theory... or something like that" works for me, too.

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Cadmum · 10/04/2008 16:46

Never. No way. No how.
These were my feelings before I had children of my own and they remain my feelings now.

We do not have to hunt for our food because we live in the city and go to the supermarket so the hunting excuse does not wash for me.

Handguns are only used for hunting people and I cannot think of any reason that I would encourage this kind of violent behaviour in my children.

I just really don't get it. (But I also don't get smacking so perhaps I am either thick or too much of a pacifist.)

christywhisty · 10/04/2008 16:48

There was some research my son was little, that said little boys who were allowed to make guns etc out of lego were less aggressive.
It was a fairly harmless way of using up pent up aggression.

MissPaulaYates · 10/04/2008 16:49

ds3 (5) takes great pride in showing my the playmobil omes and saying ' this is nasty' whilst obviously loving it - but no not really

ds1 15 is not macho but ds2 11 is a real boys boy and never had an interest

ds3 has shown more interest than the others but i am straight with him ' guns kill people - they are not nice' from a young age they can 'get' that

MissPaulaYates · 10/04/2008 16:50

i dont disallow the making of them but honestly - if it has happened (twigs probably) i barely remember

i would not buy and if someone gave them one (as if!) i would not let them have it

Solitaire · 10/04/2008 16:52

We have a mighty arsenal of guns, lightsabres (in fact I broke a glass shade with one doing a fine impression of Obi Wan ) bows/arrows, swords. My DSs (10 & 8) have a fine old time roaring round the garden with them. However we've also had discussion with them that this is NOT real life, this is play and pretend and that there is a line between pretending to be a jedi/ Captain Jack Sparrow/ James Bond and real life

mosschops30 · 10/04/2008 16:53

dh bought one for ds whilst we were in Dublin, obviously forgetting about airport home!!!!!

It was removed from the luggage and thrown into a bin by security ....bit over the top IMHO as it was obviously a toy and I dont fit the general terrorist profile either

beaniesteve · 10/04/2008 17:02

What about your daughters? Why don't you who give guns to your sons, also give them to your daughters... or do you?

SoupDragon · 10/04/2008 17:04

"Why don't you who give guns to your sons, also give them to your daughters... or do you?"

Do you think sons and daughters have access to only their own/gender specific toys in a house???

mosschops30 · 10/04/2008 17:08

if i had a small dd i would have no problem with that.
ds has a baby doll and a sword .... go figure!

No19 · 10/04/2008 17:10

Nope would hate the idea of ds in imaginative play which involved killing. No shoot-em-up computer games either, just football, driving, etc, and wouldn't tolerate language like "I'm gonna kill you" etc. Am relieved to say it hasn't been much of a struggle, tbh.

pointydog · 10/04/2008 17:15

I would accept toy guns even though a small part of me wouldn;t really like it.

barnstaple · 10/04/2008 17:15

A friend of dh's says that he (and all boys - and actually many girls) are interested in guns as kids. They grow out of it. He went on to say that as guns were banned in his childhood (he's over 50, so his mum ahead of her time) he didn't outgrow his interest and instead became fascinated with them, until sometime in his 20s when he stayed somewhere or other where his mate had an airgun and they shot birds. Then he went off them.

VictorianSqualor · 10/04/2008 17:16

I won't buy them, if DS plays a game that he decides requires guns then he can use his imagination and create one.

Having said that he does have a lightsaber, still a weapon but for some reason I'm happier about that. Probably because people aren't being killed with lightsabers in RL.

Lazycow · 10/04/2008 17:18

My ds (3.5) already has two swords and one play gun. When he uses the gun to to point and pretends to 'kill' people, I take that as a way in to discusiing how guns hurt people etc. Even at this age he is saying to me 'yes mummy but this is just a toy'.

I personally have no problme with toy swords, though I admit to being slightly uneasy when he shouts 'I'm going to kill you', but then he also shouts 'I'm going to kill the sofa'. We have had quite a few converations on the back of this sort of play about the difference between people and inanimate objects and how once someone is dead they never come back.

Obviously not all of this goes in properly, but it does mean that we are already talking about life and death in 'safe' way.

Anyway I personally just can't get worked up about them. I would never buy a toy sword or gun for another child as a gift though as I know many parents would object.

phlossie · 10/04/2008 17:25

Oh, come on people! Surely a bit of 'bang bang plop plop you're dead I'm not' is perfectly healthy so long as you instill good morals and a sense of right and wrong in your chldren? I'd wager that a real-life gun toting criminals never started using weapons because they played Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles in their back gardens, but because of far more deep rooted problems...

Smithagain · 10/04/2008 17:29

Haven't had time to read, but I did see a very interesting article recently which said that it was very important NOT to stifle little boys role-playing with weapons. Because it is something that comes naturally to them, as an early stage in imaginitive play and if you continually tell them not to, their imaginations struggle to get beyond "bang bang you're dead" and onto anything more sophisticated.

Look on it as an evolutionary response to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The boys were hunters - they needed to know how to fight - and somehow it's still there within them.

Just as most (but clearly not all) little girls start their role playing with cooking, cleaning and baby-care.

Bluebutterfly · 10/04/2008 17:35

My ds (3) loves swords and although he has never been exposed to guns and doesn't own any toy guns he has started improvising with his toy drill. I think he has picked it up in nursery.

I think that many boys are attracted to weaponry (must be the testosterone or something ).

I was bothered when we were at a restaurant the other night and a child about the same age as ds was running around with a fake hand gun "popping" at people eating and at other children and being generally obnoxious - I think his adoring parents thought it sweet. Whatever your beliefs about toy guns are I personally think that they should be confined to playing in the garden.

barnstaple · 10/04/2008 17:36

Don't most little boys get stuck in the bang bang you're dead thing though? They just disguise it when they get older!

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