Toy Guns/Killing Monsters

[the iron horse]

Do you think children need to be free to pursue this fantasy?


If they get arrested for turning a block in a gun in kindergarten,

are we going way too far?


By depressing this natural play(fantasy) in early childhood, does this cause violent behaviour later to be very aggressive?


What do you think?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I played with cap guns and the like as a kid and it certainly didn't stunt me. I think that the buzzkill brigades really know how to rob kids of their childhood.

And for the inevitable point about how many kids blow another ones brains out thinking a real gun is a toy ~ if real guns had fingerprint reciognition then it would be impossible for a child to accidently shoot another kid.

I don't think that there is any harm with kids playing cowboys and indians and running around outside, that type of activity should be encouraged.

 

[U2democrat]

you can't stop it. kids have imaginations. i used sticks and would pretend that they were guns. didn't hurt me a bit.

 

[wizard2c]

reply

Hey...I remember having a cowgirl outfit with a holster and toy gun......so far I've turned out okay.....{I think?????}

 

[Do Miss America]

I believe children should be encouraged to fulfill their fantasies.

But I do think there is a thin line between innocent fantasy and imitation.

 

[Se7en]

i used to watch rambo, predator, and terminator 2 all of the time when i was younger. my toy ak47 and cowboy 6 shooters also got a lot of use in the backyard. then there was the toy musket and my three bb guns.

i ended up being more or less a pacifist. these days i like to read, make/play music, serf the 'net, etc. go figure.

 

[Irvine511]

so long as strict lines are drawn by responsible parents between reality and playing pretend, i can't see too much harm. my parents never bought us realistic looking toy guns -- we just invented our owns with whatever we had handy.

i also remember watching movies like Predator, Robocop, and Steven Segal kill-em-all extravaganzas at sleep-overs, and absolutely HATING them because they seemed to be about pain and gore. i hated that kind of violence, but would pretend to like them lest i get called "gay" or something ... that said, i LOVED fantasy action violence like Indiana Jones or Star Wars or whatever.

 

[Liesje]

I really don't know what to say on this topic. As a kid, I never played with toy guns, not because my parents thought they were "bad", but b/c toy guns didn't really do anything, they were just pieces of plastic. I liked to DO things as a kid, not pretend (maybe why my friends call me McGuiver and I fix things for a living). We spent most of our time playing outside making forts and tree houses or catching random stray animals and begging to keep them.

I guess I won't encourage my childred to have toy weaponry or buy this stuff for them, not b/c I think they'll turn out to be killers, but I'm just not big on kids *needing* heaps of toys. They're a waste of money. That and I have this bad memory of my brother and I (about 4 and 6 at the time) being shot in the head and legs at close range with a beebee gun by a neighbor kid.

 

[financeguy]

Young males like to fight or pretend fight, it's in their genes. Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and so on. These games are normal and healthy, in my view.

 

[Liesje]

Young males like to fight or pretend fight, it's in their genes. Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and so on. These games are normal and healthy, in my view.

.......if you said this in my Comm. & Gender class you would've been LYNCHED!

 

[A_Wanderer]

Oh not the gender studies classes, they scare me.

 

[Angela Harlem]

.......if you said this in my Comm. & Gender class you would've been LYNCHED!

And we regularly lynched those who truly believed both sexes are equal (READ: identical) in my Human Behaviour class. The kids who miss out are little boys. They are not allowed to wear pink and do hair and makeup. Yet it's bloody feminists who whine constantly that women are the hard done by sex. The only area which should interest anyone is employment opportunity and pay. That's where I stand fully behind the unshaved braless women of our society and wave my hands just as high. Apart from that, we are different genders and each gender is filled with individuals. Let us celebrate that instead of all this ridiculous bullshit. Apologies for the sidetrack, if anyone wants to continue this feel free to quote me in a new thread (author permission to quote externally blah blah blah), but this shits me. I have to complain every time I see this.


Back on topic, guns aren't toys and shouldn't ever be portrayed as such. But they are and I fear I am virtually alone in my absolute and unrelenting hatred of guns. Given this and their popularity as toys, I'm not going to turn into an earth mamma and ban them from my kids. In small amounts and with much learning on the child's behalf, it's a mountain I wont attempt to climb for sheer impossibility. I doubt the majority will ever see sense. It's more important for kids to learn to be responsible, than to try and remove something which is rather ingrained in a child's play. Alas.

 

[Liesje]

Apart from that, we are different genders and each gender is filled with individuals. Let us celebrate that instead of all this ridiculous bullshit.

Exactly, it's really the boys that lose out with the "oh....let boys be boys, they're supposed to play w/ guns...." mentality. My beef with that statement had to do with the fact that he said "it's in their genes." It's not, that comes from socialization (unfortunately).

 

[A_Wanderer]

No I respectfully disagree, there are innate biological differences between boys and girls that will effect the way that they play and think, while there are always exceptions to the rule on the whole we are ruled more by our biology than our socialisation. You could not take a male child and raise that child the same way you would a girl and expect the same person at the end, they would no doubt suffer severe problems from that.

 

[JessicaAnn]

You could not take a male child and raise that child the same way you would a girl and expect the same person at the end, they would no doubt suffer severe problems from that.

A few months ago, I watched an interesting documentary on public television called "Sex: Unknown" (a Nova documentary, I think) about a fairly now well-known case of Canadian twin boys. Both underwent circumcision, however with one of the boys, something went wrong and the penis irrepairably harmed.

After consulting with physicians and psychologists, the parents chose to surgically turn the baby into a girl and to raise "him" as their daughter.

While it was a tragic situation, the case was closely watched by the scientific community because as the situation involved identical twins (genetically identical) it provided an opportunity to see what role nature and nurture plays in determining gender identity.

Well, for the boy who was raised as a girl, things did not turn out well. He never felt like a girl. He had an incredibly unhappy childhood. He was plagued by psychological difficulties.

At the age of 14, his parents revealed the truth. He rejected his female identity and chose to live as a boy. He actually has his genitalia reconstructed and is married with children.

Cases like this prove there are inherent biological differences between men and women that shape gender identity.

 

[Irvine511]

also shows why circumcision is a barbaric practice that should be tossed into the dustbin (sorry to all the Jews, Muslims, and North Americans out there), but that's for another thread ...

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I don't think there is a problem with toy guns, but if there was a statistical link between toy guns > "killing monsters", then I would probably think it over.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

so long as strict lines are drawn by responsible parents between reality and playing pretend, i can't see too much harm.

Exactly. It all boils down to parents taking on the job of being parents and raising their kids to know the difference between all that stuff.

Anywho, I've never played with toy guns. But I did play the occasional video game at the local video arcade in my old town that involved people shooting each other. And yet, I never want to touch a real gun. I'd be so terrified to hold one.

Angela

 

[Liesje]

No I respectfully disagree, there are innate biological differences between boys and girls that will effect the way that they play and think, while there are always exceptions to the rule on the whole we are ruled more by our biology than our socialisation.

Fair enough, but I still don't buy it that males are genetically wired to be more interested in guns and fighting than girls. In fact, females are much more confrontational and are MORE likely to engage in violent conflict than males, who are more likely to withdraw and would rather avoid conflict.

 

[financeguy]

In fact, females are much more confrontational and are MORE likely to engage in violent conflict than males, who are more likely to withdraw and would rather avoid conflict.

Wha?? Come off it.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Fair enough, but I still don't buy it that males are genetically wired to be more interested in guns and fighting than girls. In fact, females are much more confrontational and are MORE likely to engage in violent conflict than males, who are more likely to withdraw and would rather avoid conflict.

I'm hungry for credible statistics on this one...