Toy gun muzzle control--ridiculous?

[Greg L]

About 10 years ago we were at a friend's house for dinner/cards & their (then) 10ish son started trying to "stick me up" with a cap gun. I told him not to ever do that again (stick his cap gun in my face) as I might rip his finger off his hand as I took it away from him. He looked at me , looked at his Dad looked back at me and said that he never would again. His Dad & I explained the difference between play & messing around with people who weren't playing at the time. He seemed to grasp the concept so we enjoyed a tremendous game of cops & robbers (or some such) out in the backyard for the next hour or two. At the end he really seemed to grasp the concept of the difference between play & real life.

Greg

 

[Diggler]

...flamesuit ON...

My 10 year old puts on protective eyewear and has airsoft battles with the neighbor kids. He also plays paintball. Both of which entail a LOT of intentional pointing of barrels (that DO fire projectiles) at people.

He also shoots my REAL guns with me, a lot. That's different. My wife doesn't shoot much, and once she forgot and put her finger on the trigger of a revolver while it was pointed at the ground, right before she was going to shoot. He yelled at her, "MOM! Get your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot!"

I think that you have to be consistent with it, and you can't be consistent if you treat toy guns as real ones. You can be a muzzle nazi with a toy gun, but what good does that do when you buy him a paintball gun a few years later and you are running around in the woods pointing them at each other? Are you telling him that it's OK to point (and fire) a gun that fires a .68 cal. projectile at someone, but not a plastic one with an orange tip that cannot fire anything?

Pick up another toy gun and play cops and robbers with him, before he grows up and you miss the chance.

 

[HankB]

Every kid is different, but when I was a little kid, I had a regular arsenal of toy guns.

I was introduced to BB guns and "real" guns at an early age.

I never had a problem distinguishing between the two.