Don’t demonize guns. Show how they’re a useful tool and each gun has a specific purpose. Start training using toy guns.
1. No playing with full-size toy guns in the house. (Lego guns the size of a toothpick are okay, as are laser blasters built from 1,000 Lego bits, because those fall apart as soon as the boy picks them up.)
2. No shooting activity during Mass, even if the weapon is just your finger.
3. No shooting activity during meals, ditto.
4. If your brother or sister is screaming, stop pointing whatever-it-is at them and saying, “Pow.” I don’t care if it was just your finger. Stop it. I can’t stand the screaming another minute.
Never point your toy gun at an angry bear thinking it’s a real gun. Or a police officer thinking he knows it’s a toy.
“3 ) Toy guns are outside toys. “
Outside where someone can see you and call in an “active shooter” to the police. Only half joking.
How did we do it 100 years ago? Just do that. The way we’re raising kids these days isn’t working right.
My rules are simple - no toy guns that look anything like real guns. Water guns (super soakers) are okay, but my kids start with real guns at a young age.
They are allowed to shoot starting at about age 5, with very close supervision. They are allowed to ask about shooting and about touching guns at almost any time, but touching any gun without permission carries a one year ban on all shooting. Violating a gun safety rule, even a little, carries the same one year ban, None of my kids have ever received that ban, but they know they would if they crossed the line.
OMG...now we’re regulating TOY guns!? Is there going to be a “waiting period” to own one?
Rule No. 1: Never point it at a cop.
Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.
Merry Christmas. Enjoy your new toy. Go have fun.
(1) Any toy gun that shoots a projectile can be modified to shoot a larger projectile.
(2) Any toy gun that uses compressed air as a propelant can be modified to use explosives.
(3) Toy guns are best played with alongside leftover fireworks, and old Gilbert Chemistry sets.
We have other rules I’d type, but I have to go now, there’s a fire in the living room...
We had none of these rules when I was a kid and we turned out just fine - at least those of us who played cowboys and indians or cops and robbers.
We also weren't in the liberal mess of a society where guns are demonized and kids were taught to cringe in fear at even pictures of guns....my Dad and Shop teacher got together and held NRA-sponsored gun training and safety classes in our school - won't see that anymore....
Why not make a game of putting a gun lock on a toy. 1 kid can be the adult protecting other kids from killing themselves or each other. It’s like the principle of making broccoli as glamorous as cigarettes. Only real rebels eat broccoli.
I’m sure happy I never had the restrictions imposed by some of the above.
As kids we played cops & robbers with cap pistols just about anyplace. We were also very much aware real guns kill and that it is simply illegal to do so.
We grew up with loaded guns in the house, but that was a different time in East Los Angeles. Most homes were well armed, as it was just a few years after the cessation of WWII, and those returning from war felt naked without having a gun or two around.
My dad had a revolver, a shotgun, and a rifle close at hand. But we knew the difference between our cap pistols and the real thing, and also knew the real guns were absolutely off limits, unless my dad was cleaning them and we could ask how they worked and that sort of thing.
Of course, our media was vastly different. Shows like The Rifleman, Sky King, Lone Ranger, Fury, Roy Rogers, even Lassie had no shortage of both good and bad gun usage. The bad gun usage was usually accompanied by a black hat.
It wasn’t unusual to see kids with BB guns walking down the street on their way to a field to go plinking. Dads were supportive, moms would usually wring their hands and worry about shooting an eye out. But no one called the cops. Now a similar event would elicit SWAT teams rappelling from black helicopters in full battle gear.
I took my own two kids to the range when they were about 9 to learn the basics of safe gun handling with bolt action 22s. They both turned into good shots. And one became a Marine, the other works retail in San Francisco.
I don’t worry about either one where firearms are concerned.
Toy guns should look like toy guns. Like the old see through plastic squirt guns or the old clunker pot metal cap guns.
Living in the interior of Alaska, all toy guns are indoor guns. My children play with toy guns. They know the difference between play and real.