Toy guns and your kids

[rantingredneck]

Of course when I was a kid, I used to sneak my Daisy out of the house with all the other neighbourhood kids to play war and cowboys..... It's a lot harder to deny being hit if you just raised Cain about getting shot in the rump!

I did the same thing. Which is probably why the bb guns in the house get locked up with the "real" ones.

 

[baz]

If a kid can tell the difference, at a level appropriate to his age, between fantasy and reality, then that's what matters. Like Bones11b, a lot of kids played army, or cops and robbers, and also dreamed of hunting. In the fantasy world of army or cops and robbers, it is appropriate to point a toy gun at someone, and pretend to shoot them, because the game is an image of reality. Just don't put a real gun -- even a bb gun -- in their hands until they are old enough to learn the rules of safe gun use. And even then, keep it locked up, just like you do (or should) your own guns, if you have kids around. Then they will learn that real guns are used only as real tools or weapons, not as toys.

Really, this is nothing more than the same debate over whether violent video games cause violent behavior in teens and adolescents. It doesn't, in anyone sane enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality. Yes, there are a few who are so disturbed the distinction becomes blurred to them. We lock them up; we don't put the innocent at a disadvantage by taking the tools of self defense away from them. Unless you are an anti, of course. Then you outlaw first person shooter video games, and toy guns as well, if you can. And its because you (the anti) cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and live in a dream world where everybody can be made to play nice with each other if we just make the right rules, or pass the right legislation. Yeah, right.

 

[30 cal slob]

haven't gotten to that point yet, but methinks i'll be lumped in the debbie downer category. there are no toy guns. that doesn't mean the kid can't have fun with real guns, though.

* inculcate the four rules at an early age.

* get 'um handling real firearms (safely, of course) at an early age.

part of the 'gunproof yer kid' stragegy i guess.

i agree that "kids with guns" were less of a big deal several decades ago. but, the times they have-a-changed.

i just don't want my kids at risk of setting off a hairtrigger LEO with a toy gun.

 

[NCLivingBrit]

I did the same thing. Which is probably why the bb guns in the house get locked up with the "real" ones.

Yep. Of course back when I was young, a child with a BB gun didn't require a SWAT team, a counselling team, a 1-800 number and two dozen lawyers.

I actually feel sorry for kids these days. If anything, their freedoms have been eroded even faster than everyone else's. Between the panic about abuse, the cruelly peer-enforced brand conformity, the PC BS, the faddish new teaching methods (my wife is a teacher and some of the junk they have her waste everyone's time with is unreal) and the utter paranoia about school violence, this is not a good time to be a kid.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

I loved my childhood with toy guns. As to "not pointing any gun, even a toy, at people," I think that's a bunch of crap. Pointing toy guns at people is the whole idea! How the hell do you kill your share of the enemy without pointing your hardware at them? Kids deserve to know the difference between toy guns and real ones, and surprise, most of them learn it easily. In my childhood, even when the Cobra bean gun came out, we knew not to point it at people. But it was fun to knock cans over with, albeit they had to be pretty light. And it was the high-tech answer to the pea-shooter. Nobody I know lost their eye to one, though a few were shot in the ass. BB guns were real guns as far as we were concerned, and never pointed at anybody. Some were, of course, pointed at birds but then we point real guns at birds don't we? We won't even get into slingshots which are far more dangerous than any toy gun ever produced. And yes, I had my share of wrist-rockets, also. Nobody died or even got hurt from them around here.

I can only guess that some children today are suffering from improper upbringing, if they can't be trusted to know the difference between real guns and toys.

 

[ChuckNorris]

give them some dirtclods

 

[Kentak]

As to "not pointing any gun, even a toy, at people," I think that's a bunch of crap. Pointing toy guns at people is the whole idea! How the hell do you kill your share of the enemy without pointing your hardware at them?

If you're including me in that group, please note that I said kids should be taught not to point a toy gun at someone who wasn't playing "guns" with them. By all means, the "cops" are okay to point their guns at the "robbers," but not at the mail carrier who isn't part of the game.

K

 

[The Deer Hunter]

Toy guns can still be fun. I don't point real guns at people and animals, so toys guns substitute

Plus I can get a full auto m-15 assault autorifle with morph potential.

 

[Agouti]

My dad's friends used to be absolutely crazy. My dad was not a part of this apparently. However, his friends would dig trenches and shoot each other with bb guns in an outlandish game of army. They would take small firecrackers and wrap them with rubberbands and crayons or put clay around them. This would be the shrapnel for their grenades. One kid brought a pump sheridan pellet gun to one of these games, and shot at my uncle, who was using a trashcan lid as a shield. It went right through it. He wasn't allowed to use that gun in the games anymore, the other kids decided -it was simply too powerful. Of course in their teens, they experimented with firecrackers, explosives, and finally steel-tube guns. Man, the '50s and '60s sounded like a friggin' blast. Way cooler than my modern airsoft guns. Sure, they may pop back or fire automatically, but they just aren't rugged enough. I don't want a piece of plastic, I want iron, steel, and wood!

Btw, is there any eye-protection out there designed to stop a real bb, made of steel, not plastic?

 

[fletcher]

Btw, is there any eye-protection out there designed to stop a real bb, made of steel, not plastic?

Depends on how fast it's going, but I wouldn't be willing to try it even if it was rated for such an impact. Your eyes should be the least of your worries for that. BB guns are not toys.

 

[Prince Yamato]

Toy guns that don't shoot anything besides water are good.

BB guns are not toys.

Excellent point. Remember, a Metropolitan Opera tenor recently committed suicide with an air rifle.


When I was a kid, I ran around my upstate NY suburban neighborhood with my toy AK. Now I run to Texas gun ranges with my real one

 

[Agouti]

"Depends on how fast it's going"

I mean a standard one-pump one shot old fashined bb that are primarily marketed as toys, or once were anyway. The one I have in mind is a Daisy from WWI.

Velocity between 250-300 fps.