Why do we still have toy guns?

DS has never had toy guns at home. But every single one of his friends has them and while I'm fine being "that mom" in our house, I'm not going to try to say he can't play with toy guns at his friends' homes.

We do, however, talk a lot about why we don't have them at our house - and why we don't play first-person-shooter video games, etc.

Because talking about lack of mental health resources should be our focus, not banning nerf guns.

And candy cigarettes are still a thing, not as common, but still a thing.

Why do we have kool-aid after Jim Jones used it so many years ago to massacre his cult in Guyana. It seems a silly argument but I understand the need to grasp at straws as we try to figure out what the problem is. I get it It isn't the tool used to commit these deeds, it is the person responsible. That is where the focus should be.

Banning toy guns is not the answer. If you choose not to have them in your own home then that is fine but I doubt that it will change anything. My sons grew up with nerf guns, water guns, cap shooters and even play first shooter games ( I don't agree with them personally but they are adults) AND my boys are adamantly anti guns.

I think we’re all hurting and overwhelmed that there seems to be nothing we can do. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying.

With my two boys ( and now my grandson ) they create guns out of the cardboard tubing of paper towels , lego, their hands- anything really . Guns terrify me,but guns have been part of make believe play for a very long time . I don't really see this as beingvat the root of the problem .

When I taught kindergarten of course toy guns were absolutely banned from school 100%.

But the boys would make guns with their fingers and play fingerguns. Run around the playground, bam bam with their fingers. I can’t ban fingers and I can’t intervene in every playground game. Little boys can make a play gun out of anything just about. Sticks, whatever.

I think this is developmental for some kids to be interested to play cops and robbers or whatever and they work out some natural aggression and feelings playing these games. I don’t like fingerguns either but the school counselor provided us some insight and some strategies for it to make it easier to manage and understand. Mostly her advice was let it go a little bit and let them have some aggressive play to work out their feelings and the pecking order, then rein it in and move their attention to a structured game such as foursquare or freeze tag or something more innocuous.

I hope toy guns go the way of candy cigarettes and fall way out of fashion but I think there’s a place for imitative violent play.

My husband and I both come from hunting families (for food, not sport). As expected, our kids have followed suit. Toy guns is how we taught out kids our "gun rules" and gun safety. They were allowed toy guns, dart guns, nerf guns, etc, but were expected to handle them in the same manner as real ones. No pointing/shooting at anyone or pets. Target shooting only. Hold pointing toward ground, etc. There was an understanding that if they could not handle the fake ones, there would be no handling of the real ones when they were of appropriate age. Worked well for us.  

ETA:  Once the kids were old enough to clearly understand the distinction between the two, we of course have had nerf wars around the house.

So posts like this completely overrides the multiple mass murders we see every week?

So no water guns or you don’t point the water at people   Our teens and even adults love their water gun fights and we enjoy watching them.

I forbid my son from having guns when he was little.

Darn kid grew up to be a police officer.     

my mil didn't allow even toy guns for a long time. She laughs now as dh and bil made guns out of everything they could find

Eta: DJ, bil, and fil are currently on a hunting trip. Yds just got back

Gun role play and toy guns are played with by lots of children around the world. I worked in early years and we didn't ban them as it is a type of conflict and power role play which is common for boys. If the play is agreed with clear rules in the game children cananage their play. But then I live in the UK where the gun culture is very different and it is not linked to gun and violence issues in later life.

Our boys have nerf guns. We always taught them not to point at people or animals. We've set up targets for them to shoot at. YDS has quite a few nerf guns and he generally shoots them down the hallway for the cats to chase the darts. He and the cats can play for hours doing this. There is nothing violent or negative about it. The kids know all about gun safety and the difference between real guns and nerf guns. We don't allow them to have any gun that looks real, they noticeably have to look like toys, even from a distance.