Toy gun, viewed innocently or not !

Toothpaste is better these days, V3ra, we'd never heard of fluoride
?

Calistemon

^We don't allow candy cigarettes anymore now either.^
I used to love those too, Gagajo
Hence lots of fillings!

They're called candy sticks now, my granddaughter has them.
Exactly the same but without the red end ?

Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!

I have fond memories of my silver cap gun when I was little - and my Davy Crockett hat! I was not a girly girl……

We don't allow candy cigarettes anymore now either.
I used to love those too, Gagajo
Hence lots of fillings!

I'm from Norfolk, buffyfly9. That was the upbringing I had. As a child it didn't occur to me it was wrong. Clay pigeon shooting & target practise were fun. I didn't make the link with the duck, goose, pheasant we ate, with the shooting. Until my dad asked me to aim at a rabbit. Nope. Never shot a gun again. I was 10.

It's a blood sport. Toy guns encourage it and violence.

My two grandsons each had an air rifle with telescopic sight (£400 each apparently) for Xmas from their parents. I could hardly lift the guns, they were so heavy. The 11 year old goes clay pigeon shooting and the 13 year old does target practice. They are both real animal lovers and lovely boys so I have no fears there but I was appalled to find that my now ex son-in-law had taken them "beating" with him. I'm afraid I didn't hold back, I said you mean you have been helping specially reared birds to fly up in the air so that some brainless idiot can get a big gun and shoot them out of the sky. I said what's next? smearing Fox blood on their innocent faces ??. It didn't go down well with the parents and I told the boys I was disappointed that they had taken part in it. We live in a rural area of Norfolk where it's common practice; I don't like it, I never have. The boys play Fortnite all the time, it's impossible to monitor it as all their friends are on it and they would feel excluded. I think it's in the DNA of boys as they would, as other GP,s have noted, pick up sticks and use them instead. I confess to buying them both a small Nerf with foam bullets some years ago and they play with them still !! I just hope the novelty of these air rifles wears off but they are not my children so I just have to bite my lip.

I bought cowboy guns, holster and cowboy hats for my grandsons aged 4-6 but only to play at home. They would never have been allowed out in public with the guns. So I don't think a supermarket is a good place to take them. In this day and age people may be uncomfortable seeing any gun being waved around in public.

I think fantasy games at home are okay. Children love them. Cowboy guns and sci-fi ray guns are nothing like real guns and won't turn them into teenage shooters. I think violent computer games are much more likely to do that.

Toy guns were inappropriate 35 years ago when I had my DD. It was standard back then to not give guns. My DGS isn't allowed them either.

Don't normalise a deadly weapon! We don't allow candy cigarettes anymore now either.

Oh those caps used to hurt if they caught your finger.
The smell of burning flesh.

DH had a gun with caps which he passed onto a younger brother when my MIL was in the Co- op her handbag clicked open and there was the gun he had been playing with her handbag as well, she said every body just laughed.
Both ended up working with the community.
Though would I buy my GS a gun no but a water pistol yes.

Or some of us, anyway, before anyone leaps in to say their dad would never have watched such programmes.

Probably, just as we did when our dads watched westerns.
In between the wrestling, of course.

If very young children are playing pretend shooting, where do they get the idea from? Are they watching guns on television?

Zoejory

Many young children are arming themselves with assault rifles, machine guns, fire bombs, grenades etc etc whilst playing one of the most popular computer games ever, Fortnite,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/screen-play/201908/how-young-is-too-young-fortnite

This is an interesting article about Fortnite and its effects on children.

The thing is, no one in a supermarket is going to mistake a gun made out of Duplo for the real thing whereas a realistic toy gun could cause alarm.

Many young children are arming themselves with assault rifles, machine guns, fire bombs, grenades etc etc whilst playing one of the most popular computer games ever, Fortnite,

Tamir Rice was only 12 when he was shot by police two minutes after they arrived, because he was playing with a toy gun.

Of course, it all depends on who you are as to whether it’s considered a threat or not.

While visiting my grandchildren in Texas recently we took them to a virtual reality place. First time for us oldies and we loved our underwater adventure, especially the whale which almost touched us. The young ones found it frightening and asked for an interactive game for the four of us to play together.
I specified no guns and was rather put out to find we were guarding a castle against huge horrible giants with everyone wielding crossbows.
The children were perfectly happy shooting the attackers with no fear of the monsters which they shot with enthusiasm.
So much for my no guns policy!

my grandchildren wern't allowed toy guns so I don't think it sensible to allow a child however small to have one in a supermarket.

I was told off by my elderly, adoptive mother (she really took me under her wing when I came to Wales) for buying my son a toy gun. Since then, I never buy toy guns for children, and now, grandchildren.

Our boys had water pistols and toy swords and would 'make' their own with sticks of various shapes and sizes. The other shoppers don't sound as if they were bothered Serendipity but as this has worried you, make sure he leaves it at home in future.

We did the whole ‘no guns’ thing when our’s were little, but on his fourth birthday our firstborn was bought a huge assault gun type toy. He played with it for a bit, but it soon broke. We had a number of toy guns after that, all bought by other people, and all cheap, plastic things that soon broke. It didn’t turn our children into criminals.

Interestingly, when I was teaching, during a teacher training day with a visiting psychologist, we learnt that research has shown that allowing children to play with toy guns does not make them violent. I worked in Early Years (nursery and reception classes) for many years, and after that when children made a gun out of duplo and drew my attention to it, I would merely say to the child ‘I don’t like guns.’ I didn’t tell them to undo it or praise their building skills. I left it at that.

My nephews and nieces have nerf guns and water pistols. We’ve enjoyed many a garden battle. They don’t take them outside the house. I think you did right taking the gun away in the circumstances.

In the early 1980s I consciously didn't allow any "violent" toys and my daughter and son fitted with that philosophy.
Third child, another son, would make a gun out of anything and everything you gave him to play with: Duplo, sticklebricks, you name it, so... ?