Please could I have some advice about ds's gun obsession?

[LeChien]

Ds is 10, has HFA/PDA. He tends to be angry most of the time and is often aggressive and violent.
He has a long-standing obsession with all things weapon, particularly guns and knives.

Dh and I have always been very anti-guns, and we worry that allowing this might not be a good thing with a boy who already threatens others. He has also had plans to get a gun as an adult and go and kill his ex-teacher - I know this is probably (hopefully!) just extreme words from a boy unable to properly express himself, but this does worry dh and me.

However, by trying to squash the gun thing, I think we've inadvertently made it into a bigger deal.

I now wonder if we would be better to encourage it, but bring in loads of safety aspects and how guns in the wrong hands are incredibly dangerous.

He is very creative and, despite us having something of a gun ban, will make guns out of anything he can get his hands on, he once made several anatomically correct guns out of paper!

Obviously I'm not suggesting buying him gun, but rather us changing our attitude and encouraging the creative side.

Really not sure what's the best thing to do. Any advice would be welcome!

DS1 is currently obsessed with fifa 15/6 but used to have a worrying interest in weapons. I feared for the safety of DS2 if he were armed We let him have nerf guns (every model made of course) which he then customised to look real using special paint. Then a swiss army knife. Then a potato gun and then a BB gun. He shoots at targets. tbh he has threatened DH and DS2 with kitchen knives before (not for a couple of years now I come to think about it - he is 14, nearly 15) but never his own 'weapons'.

We live on a farm and the local shoot sets out from here so it's 'normal' to hear gun fire or to chat to the gamekeeper and I am used to seeing 'the guns' walking around with their guns. The gamekeeper said DS1 could join them on a shoot (really generous as they cost about £3k) which appears to have cured him of his interest in shooting

Oh, also he has gone virtual with 'The Shoot', COD and, of course, GTA.

I traded my standards for an absence of meltdowns

I'm no expert, but you could try emphasising martial arts, nerf, cadets, paintball, airsoft, etc. He's more likely to learn respect r.e. weapons and unarmed combat from a real life social activity supervised by adults than from video games and chatting online to kids with a similar perspective to his. It also may have the opposite effect to banning weapons, in that the rules and respect expected in martial arts and military simulation could make it less attractive to him - such is reality with the laws on weapons licences and realistic imitation firearms.

Do be careful with painting nerf/BB guns! Technically you as adults can get in a whole lot of trouble for flaunting something which looks like a weapon, and I say this because as anti-gun people it may not occur to you when fielding meltdowns by letting DS take his favourite "toy" to the supermarket.

(Background: I have ASD, and my parents banned violent everything when I was a child. As an adult, I was surprised to find the reality of milsim and martial arts profoundly boring.)

Me too keep

I'm also up for that award

If it makes you feel better ds1 had an obsession with murderers for a while (my fault for taking him to London dungeons for a birthday treat)! Luckily, it was when he was younger and we coped by providing limited opportunities to fuel the obsession and distraction. He still has an interest but luckily other obsessions have taken over to a large extent.

Thank you!
He has some xbox games, but no internet access over it, so no issue with chatting with other children.
He's not interested in martial arts at all, otherwise that's something we would definitely look into.
He does have nerf guns, but we have to "lose" the bullets or he threatens and shoots us.
We do live near a shooting area, but ds is very against that, as they're killing birds. No problem with killing teachers though

:o at obsession with murderers! I have to admit to an interest in psychopathy at the moment, very interesting.

I think we'll go with careful encouragement and lots of chats about safety.

If it helps my darling did who is only 6 has a gun obsession! She has loads of nerf guns and she's repeatedly jumping out Nd shooting me. I've indulged her - it hasn't got better but it's got no worse

My dos is also gun obsessed - especially nerf guns and told ed psych had wanted a sniper license when he was an adult to shoot all the bullies in the world . He also told his old HT if he didn't do his job properly and stop the bullies he'd get a gun and murder them for him.

He also wants to paint the nerf guns.

I also traded my responsible parenting and morals on guns. Not sure for what though

Well, we've been prepared to be encouraging this weekend, and not one mention of guns!
Maybe he can sense that we approve and it'll head him off that one! Bit of reverse psychology.