Do you let your kids play with toy guns?

[Russ Jackson]

If your Kid is too stupid to know the difference between toy guns and real ones you might want to remove all real guns from the home. I would love to see a neighborhood of kids playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians again....Russ

 

[MinnMooney]

Good grief, folks.

Toys are toys. When you grow up you'll know the difference.

Baseball bats are toys or tools to be used in a game. They are NOT to be used to harm innocent people or animals.

Cars are tools for getting from A to B. They are not for ramming another in a fit of roadrage. Toy cars get rammed, tossed around and driven extremely recklessly. Real cars are for those who have the maturity, wisdom and ability to use them correctly.

Toy guns are fun and entertaining. Real guns need to only be handled by mature, knowedgable people with ability to use them properly and safely.

Grow up, folks and let your kids be kids.

 

[ch45x7]

I grew up playing with guns every day during the summers. I am very safe and very good with the guns I have now. I think it all depends on the personality of the kid. If your kid has trouble listening to you, following directions, doesn't know when enough is enough, or doesn't stop when you say stop, then I would be reluctant to give them a gun early in life.
Kids grow up. It's what they do. They get older, and smarter. It's the parents job to teach them right from wrong. And to make sure they know the difference between real and fake.

 

[45Fan]

I cant think of a time that I didnt have a toy gun with me. Sure, we played cops and robbers, but I cant remember using anything more than a cap gun for that. Anything that had a projectile, in my mind, was practice for the day I would get a real gun, and was treated as such. My son has more toy guns than I can count, and yet, he is more responsible and aware of what he points a REAL gun at at the ripe old age of 11 than my wife that is aproaching 40. She didnt have toy guns as a kid, and her parrents were the type that thought toy guns were terrible things that promote violence. I think its not so much what your children play with, but how they are raised that promotes good gun saftey.
I for one would much rather begin proper gun handling with something that is not going to put a hole in me or someone else if something goes wrong, but to each his own.

 

[MostlySurly]

Absolutely

Woe be the child deprived of childhood by not playing with squirtguns.

 

[nyrifleman]

Played with toy guns all through my childhood. In fact, my brother and I used to scandalize a lot of anti-gun neighbors (I grew up in NYC, and my childhood was not so long ago). My dad first taught me to shoot at the age of 7 or 8 or so.

Haven't shot anyone yet

 

[ldsjohn]

My son( 5 ) and his sister ( 3 ) both love to play with toy guns, they have a closet with almost 20, and each makes a different sound. they play war all the time, often with most of the neighborhood kids coming to borrow from our armory.

my son knows finger control and knows to only shoot enemies, and he knows the difference between the real gun.

he loves to shoot my .22 and does so with full adherence to the rules and I am allways impressed with his respect for the real guns.

but I must be a bad parent because he also plays with gi joes and green army men. and I let him play outside without supervision.

 

[jdowney]

I'm sure this has been done, but I didn't see it in a search.

I absolutely hate toy guns, especially in the hands of children. They have a difficult enough time telling reality from fantasy.

I know a lot of gun-owners, and the divide is pretty clean. I know it's not a statistically-significant sample, but......

1) Those who let their kids play with toy guns have kids with TERRIBLE trigger discipline, muzzle control, and general safety with REAL guns. They play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and other shoot-em-up kids games. And then when the parents try to teach them about real guns, the kids don't take it seriously enough, because the habits with toy guns are so ingrained. It's very hard to expect a 6 year old to point a realistic toy gun at his friend, and then respect that it is absolutely unacceptable to do it with a gun that looks exactly like it.

2) Those who don't (which is a smaller group) all have kids who are respectful of the power of the gun. I know of two different two year olds who can say the gun safety rules, and put it into practice. I was showing one father a handgun of mine, and he turned to his kid and said "Now what do we do with guns?" And the 2 year old says, "Finger OFF the trigger. No pointing. It's loaded."

Is this just coincidence? We're not yet parents, but we've agreed - no toy guns in our house. But the kids will get all the real guns they want.

What do you think?

Since you asked, I will tell you that you are waaaay over thinking this. I grew up playing with guns and shooting dad's guns starting about 4th grade when he bought a new .22 lever gun. Even earlier than that I understood the difference between toy and real, as well as the difference between TV and real. Kids are a lot smarter than adults generally give them credit for. Gun safety, trigger pull, etc is all in the schooling your kid gets from you, not what they get from watching TV or playing with friends.

In your shoes, I'd let them play with toy guns. Then when the kid is old enough to begin having some sense of responsibility (say 7-8), start them with .22's or pellet guns and teach basic marksmanship and safety.