Toy Guns

I know certain therapist that thinks toys should be part of their toys to help play out aggressive tendencies. Some people think guns are a natural toy that boys should play with, a toy that seems to attach or get them familiar with their masculinity. There are those that see toy guns as a step in the learning process to using guns responsibly. I have even heard, “Well they just pick up sticks and use them as guns anyway.”

To these ideas, I just have to shake my head.

The idea of playing with toy guns is something that is hard to study. It’s hard to see how playing with toy guns can have a scientific foundation on the propensity to use a gun later in life for a violent crime. There is just too many variables to make a statement like that, so if you think that is what I am saying, you are not understanding me. What I am about to write is my gut feelings as an educated mother. I am a liberal California hippy chick tree hugging momma who loves her children and wants to keep my kids sweet disposition for their entire lives, so from this point of view I realize I am bias. I admit that if my kids never killed an animal, or shot an intruder in their entire existence then I will be very happy. So with that I say this:

Guns are not Toys and Toys are not Guns.

I watch my kids. They are creative and artistic. They love hide and seek and bubbles. They make up their own games and I need to take stock in crayola. They color rainbows and play tag. I watched as my son, picked up a toy gun for the first time at a friend’s house. His demeanor changed. He was no longer into collaboration in his game types but started playing with the idea of shooting people dead. This wasn’t the first time they played with the idea of death, but there was a difference. Yesterday, it was my youngest laying on the ground because an Elephant stepped on him, then sat on him and farted, so that made him flat and dead. This time, there was a hunt… a ferocity that came along with the game.

He saw me watching him with a concerned look, and I asked him to put the gun down. He told me, “Mom, we are just pretending.” I explained, it’s not that you are pretending, that’s fine. It’s the way you are pretending. This toy changes your thinking. Thoughts moved from rainbow and bubble gardens, to ultimate victory to the shooting death. I told him, “You are a sweet and kind boy, and this type of play is changing the way you play and think. What kind of boy do you want to be?” He agreed and put down the gun surprisingly without an argument. He hasn’t asked for any type of gun toys since. Apparently he enjoys being a sweet boy too.

So no, it’s not scientific and it’s just one of the many reasons I am over the top.

Guns for adults… I still believe in positive in and positive out. Guns for protection, I trust a baseball bat. I refuse to live in a world where I only feel safe with access to a deadly weapon. Positive in, positive out to create the world I want for my children.

Hopefully the only kind of "gun" my kids will ever use: