My boys play with Nerf guns, but they have a very controlled "shooting range" and must maintain muzzle control. I've taken them away for pointing them a non-safe direction. They have never and will never point them at anyone in the including the dog. I believe in teaching them from day one the importance of muzzle discipline. Since I have "real" guns in the house, I want no confusion when it comes to point any gun in a safe direction. You can still teach the kids and let them be kids at the same time.
Views on toy guns for little kids?
- Thread starter JT1JT1
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I also grew up in the fifties and never had any difficulty telling toy guns from real ones. My kids (children of the 80s) had plastic guns, water guns, nerf guns, etc., including cheapo laser tag guns where the object was to "kill" your opponent. Yet they never turned into merciless killers or unsafe gun handlers. They enjoy shooting and have always been safe handlers of real guns. Kids do know the difference. This doesn't mean we don't teach them the rules of safe gun handling, just that we can trust them not to be warped by the toys.
My brothers and I have had toy guns since we were little. Our parrents initialy tried to keap us from having toy guns, but after a sucsession of ghramm-craker guns, pizzia box guns, and such like they capitulated. We now have a dozen-plus toy guns. My only real regret is that they don't make squirt guns that look real anymore. Fortunatly, I was helping a lady from our church clean out her garage earlier this year and walked away with 4 squirt guns: a micro-uzi, a MP5K, and 2 other pistols, as well as a nice belt. I passed on a pair of tommy guns and the flame-thrower style squirt gun.
I played with toy guns all the time as a kid, so did all the neighbor kids. I don't think any of us are/were worse for it. Even at a fairly young age you know what is pretend and what is real. A child, unless he is a safe cracker or takes it off my person, doesn't have access to my real guns anyways.
Play and pretending is normal for kids.
Play and pretending is normal for kids.
friscolatchi
Member
MATTEL SNUB NOSE 38
I remember one Christmas in the 1950's I got a gun made by Mattel called a "snub nose 38" It was black and had a really great shoulder holster. It shot small grey plastic bullets that fit inside a casing. Well, one day I heard my mother listening to a radio broadcast about bank robberies being made using this same gun. We lived in the Bronx and had no firearms background except for my Father's and uncles WWII experiences. After that day, I could never find that gun, no matter how hard I looked. I was probably only about 8 years old.
You see, I allow my 6 year old to play with toy guns. We constantly talk about safety and the ground rules. He has a bb gun and a 22 but doesn't even come close to my obsession to shoot. He is the reason why I started collecting. He's really into WWII and wants me to get a carbine. I'll buy it for myself but I know that when he is able he'll be using it. You should see him handle the 1911 cap gun. He holds the toy admirably and has a perfect stance.
I think that it is fine for children to have toy and even real guns, but they have to have the rules repeated over and over again, regardless of how real or contrived (Nerf) the firearm is. You cannot rest.
PS.. My M&P 340 looks awfully like that Christmas toy....
I remember one Christmas in the 1950's I got a gun made by Mattel called a "snub nose 38" It was black and had a really great shoulder holster. It shot small grey plastic bullets that fit inside a casing. Well, one day I heard my mother listening to a radio broadcast about bank robberies being made using this same gun. We lived in the Bronx and had no firearms background except for my Father's and uncles WWII experiences. After that day, I could never find that gun, no matter how hard I looked. I was probably only about 8 years old.
You see, I allow my 6 year old to play with toy guns. We constantly talk about safety and the ground rules. He has a bb gun and a 22 but doesn't even come close to my obsession to shoot. He is the reason why I started collecting. He's really into WWII and wants me to get a carbine. I'll buy it for myself but I know that when he is able he'll be using it. You should see him handle the 1911 cap gun. He holds the toy admirably and has a perfect stance.
I think that it is fine for children to have toy and even real guns, but they have to have the rules repeated over and over again, regardless of how real or contrived (Nerf) the firearm is. You cannot rest.
PS.. My M&P 340 looks awfully like that Christmas toy....
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I was born in late ww2 and every kid on the block during the 1950's had a toy gun and a war surplus helmet liner. If a boy didn't play army or cowboys and Indians................well you were hanging out with the girls.
Just the way it was back then.
Just the way it was back then.
9MMare
Member
I might have some things in common with Rickomatic...altho I'm not that old!
I was born to be a cowgirl...in NJ.
For my third birthday, I was given 2 sets of 6-guns...not one seet, but 2. Pictures show me in cowboy hat and boots, weilding 2 pistols over a cake.
I have never been a violent person, no criminal record, nor really had any special interests in guns. I did play with them as a kid. (people would have a stroke if you gave kids toy guns these days as a present! lol)
My family was gun-neutral and I didnt own a gun until I was 49. I still mainly see it as a tool, altho I do enjoy shooting.
And I did grow up to be a cowgirl....it only took another 37 yrs.
I was born to be a cowgirl...in NJ.
For my third birthday, I was given 2 sets of 6-guns...not one seet, but 2. Pictures show me in cowboy hat and boots, weilding 2 pistols over a cake.
I have never been a violent person, no criminal record, nor really had any special interests in guns. I did play with them as a kid. (people would have a stroke if you gave kids toy guns these days as a present! lol)
My family was gun-neutral and I didnt own a gun until I was 49. I still mainly see it as a tool, altho I do enjoy shooting.
And I did grow up to be a cowgirl....it only took another 37 yrs.
Thanks for all the replies. I posted because I'm wondering about whether my current thinking makes sense. It's by default, not intent, that our house currently has no toy guns. The issue just came up when the kid was mulling his Halloween costume options. He proposed a Star Wars character with a blaster, but ended up choosing to go as an unarmed (not one-armed) pirate, probably because he's never seen a pirate movie with black-powder firearms or whatever was the carry back in that day. So the issue was deferred, but not resolved.
To be sure, I could see myself letting the kid play with toy power tools without my fretting to an online forum about whether he would take the sawzall to the cat or something. So that's a possible contradiction. And yes, the kid plays with imaginary guns, so whether he has a toy one or not may be irrelevant.
That said, we skipped getting the kid a tricycle or bicycle with training wheels -- both legitimate and fun toys -- because both provide the wrong kind of training for someone looking to ultimately ride a two-wheel pedal bike. Instead, we went straight to two-wheels (without pedals) and the kid was riding a real bike at a very early age.
I suspect this may be the real reason for my current aversion to toy guns. I basically can't wait to introduce him to the real thing and wonder whether he'll just be happy with toys for longer than I'd like. Or learn hard to break habits. But he's a kid and kids play, so...
I also suspect--actually realize--that times have changed. I recall going to summer camp as a kid where you could check out a .22 rifle as easily as a canoe. I'm pretty sure a kid taking even a toy gun to camp or school nowadays would run into some politically charged problems.
To be sure, I could see myself letting the kid play with toy power tools without my fretting to an online forum about whether he would take the sawzall to the cat or something. So that's a possible contradiction. And yes, the kid plays with imaginary guns, so whether he has a toy one or not may be irrelevant.
That said, we skipped getting the kid a tricycle or bicycle with training wheels -- both legitimate and fun toys -- because both provide the wrong kind of training for someone looking to ultimately ride a two-wheel pedal bike. Instead, we went straight to two-wheels (without pedals) and the kid was riding a real bike at a very early age.
I suspect this may be the real reason for my current aversion to toy guns. I basically can't wait to introduce him to the real thing and wonder whether he'll just be happy with toys for longer than I'd like. Or learn hard to break habits. But he's a kid and kids play, so...
I also suspect--actually realize--that times have changed. I recall going to summer camp as a kid where you could check out a .22 rifle as easily as a canoe. I'm pretty sure a kid taking even a toy gun to camp or school nowadays would run into some politically charged problems.
LibShooter
Member
Toy guns are for having fun in the back yard. Tricycles are for having fun on the driveway. In my opinion neither is for teaching a kid anything. Children today are missing out on just plain play. Wasting time should a birthright of an 8 year old.
9MMare
Member
IMO, toys, play, and playacting as kids are part of an important fantasy life...where all is possible before the realities of life start to make you reconsider things.
If you believe enough as a child, you may be able to make it come true as an adult.
If you believe enough as a child, you may be able to make it come true as an adult.
I do not have kids.
My father (RIP), an avid gun collector, did teach me and my sister how to handle and shoot firearms very early in life....so toy guns did not interest me at all...maybe I had only 2 or 3 when I was a little more than a toddler (I remember a Winchester style leveraction and a toy Colt), as an "introduction" to real firearms.
I remember that at around 6, my father bought my first rifle, a smoothbore (6 mm Flobert) single shot bolt action made in Germany by Voere...I still have that rifle at my mother house in Italy...the rear sight have an extremely optimistic end of the scale at 200 meters!!!
By the time I was 10 I was shooting handguns almost regularly.
We were shooting very often, we lived in the city but we owned a big piece of land in the country where we could shoot freerly all day long.
My father (RIP), an avid gun collector, did teach me and my sister how to handle and shoot firearms very early in life....so toy guns did not interest me at all...maybe I had only 2 or 3 when I was a little more than a toddler (I remember a Winchester style leveraction and a toy Colt), as an "introduction" to real firearms.
I remember that at around 6, my father bought my first rifle, a smoothbore (6 mm Flobert) single shot bolt action made in Germany by Voere...I still have that rifle at my mother house in Italy...the rear sight have an extremely optimistic end of the scale at 200 meters!!!
By the time I was 10 I was shooting handguns almost regularly.
We were shooting very often, we lived in the city but we owned a big piece of land in the country where we could shoot freerly all day long.
CajunBass
Member
AMEN this.
I had one of those too. But MINE was in "nickle".
rickomatic
Member
LOL. More than you might know, MMare. Not the cowgirl part. But I was raised in NJ too. We moved out here to the Seattle area in 1961. It's funny to think about living in NJ as a kid, and having Mattell "Fanner 50" sixguns that shot plastic bullets out of spring loaded cases with Greenie Stickum caps pasted to em, in light of NJ's hoplophobia today.
I'm sure you'll agree. NJ is a good place to be from.......................FAR from.
Mt Shooter
Member
I had one of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qXLxHi9_8
Along with a garrand.....with live action sound.
no one had been hurt so far, I knew the difference between toys and real.
I also had a Man from uncle gun with the shoulder holser.....tried to wear it to church under my suit coat, that one got me busted. Mom was not amused odd... now I do it with a real one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qXLxHi9_8
Along with a garrand.....with live action sound.
no one had been hurt so far, I knew the difference between toys and real.
I also had a Man from uncle gun with the shoulder holser.....tried to wear it to church under my suit coat, that one got me busted. Mom was not amused odd... now I do it with a real one.
Shawn Dodson
Member
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Me and the neighborhood kids all had toy guns, cap guns, rubber pellet guns, etc. We pointed them at each other whenever we played war. I reckon we were all smart enough beck then to know the difference between real guns and toy guns. To date (since the late 60s) none of us have shot anybody nor mistaken an actual firearm for a toy, and we're all avid shooters and hunters.
When we became teenagers and got BB guns they were always handled with the same respect as a firearm.
We were all a hell of a lot more dangerous and mischievious with our slingshots.
When we became teenagers and got BB guns they were always handled with the same respect as a firearm.
We were all a hell of a lot more dangerous and mischievious with our slingshots.
mljdeckard
Member
Our rule is, they can have guns that cannot be mistaken for real guns. Space guns, super-soakers, nerf foam-rubber ball guns are ok. We may look at paint-ball guns that look real when they get older, with very specific rules, times and places to use them.
We have a couple of reasons for this. We have decided that part of removing the mystery for guns is, they need to know that a gun isn't something you just pick up and start playing with. If my carry gun is lying on the kitchen table, they don't need to start deciding if it's a toy or not, they already know, it's not a toy. Also, it's pretty difficult for kids to be mistaken for criminals with real guns if they don't have toy guns. I also teach them that pointing a gun at a person is something that means you are trying to kill them. The "Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy" thing doesn't have an asterisk for toy guns. It always applies. The only reason to point a gun at someone is to save your life.
We have a couple of reasons for this. We have decided that part of removing the mystery for guns is, they need to know that a gun isn't something you just pick up and start playing with. If my carry gun is lying on the kitchen table, they don't need to start deciding if it's a toy or not, they already know, it's not a toy. Also, it's pretty difficult for kids to be mistaken for criminals with real guns if they don't have toy guns. I also teach them that pointing a gun at a person is something that means you are trying to kill them. The "Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy" thing doesn't have an asterisk for toy guns. It always applies. The only reason to point a gun at someone is to save your life.
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