Carrying toy guns in public - Does it offend you?

[WyrdNyrd]

Every now-and-them I see little kids, sometimes even wearing "camo", carrying toy guns around in shopping malls. And it always offends me greatly.

Thing is, I can't explain exactly why. It's not like they're carrying full-sized replicas. (That's just stupid, and has lead to accidental deaths in the past.) No, these were easily identifiable as toys.

It just strikes me as somehow wrong, at a visceral level. Does anyone else feel this way? Is anyone else better able to articulate why?

I'm especially interested in the responses of two groups: Parents, and people with strong opinions, either way, on gun control.

Note, I'm not necessarily against selling toy guns to kids. I had dozens of toy guns when I was small, and I grew up alright. Actually, scrap that. I just don't think that toy guns were what caused me to go off the rails.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I just dont like seeing anything like a gun,
also having kid's think that "guns" are toys is one of the stupidest things i can think of without the word religion in it.

[Drunk Monkey]

It’s just a toy gun, nothing to be offended about. Just think about it this way, better the kid carry a toy gun then a real gun.

[General Brock]

I understand your concerns. It is disturbing seeing a little kid wearing the symbols of being ready and willing to use deadly force. However, it is just a toy gun, and a child's image of the soldier as the epitome of cool adult self-empowerment. I'd rather get it out of his system early, so that if he or she does join the armed forces, it is for more mature reasons. If the child is acting like some stereotypical B-movie jughead, even more so.

Otherwise, a kid playing soldier, practicing at physical courage and the more positive ideals of soldierhood, working as part of a team in group play, or just out and running about instead of gaming and watching the idiot box, is a good thing.

I'd be slightly more concerned about the kid running around with a toy sword, since that implies actually hitting things, not just pointing and shooting a noisemaker. One of my friends is recovering from a kid just getting over some sort of WWF phase. Kids should not be allowed to watch pro-wrestling, until they know jumping on people = painfully bad idea for the jumpee.

[Darth Wong]

It's fucking stupid for a kid to get in the habit of carrying toy guns around in public. Kids have been shot in low-light conditions by paranoid police officers before for that sort of thing.

[weemadando]

It depends on the definition of public... If in their frontyard/the pavement infront of neighbours yards, then hell no. STFU and only complain if they mess with your garden.

If in public as in wandering through a shopping mall, then it kinda gets to me, but police here aren't nearly as twitchy as in other locations around the world, plus, the lack of laws allowing people to carry firearms, not to mention the general firearms laws means that people aren't really that concerned when they see a kid with a gun, because there is only the most remote chance that it is a real gun...

[General Brock]

It's fucking stupid for a kid to get in the habit of carrying toy guns around in public. Kids have been shot in low-light conditions by paranoid police officers before for that sort of thing.

I forgot about that. I was thinking in terms of cowboys/soldiers/cops/robbers in the neighborhood and park by under-ten yr olds.

Probably a good idea to teach the kid gun safety and etiquette too, like its rude to point it at strangers and non-players.

[RedImperator]

I just dont like seeing anything like a gun,
also having kid's think that "guns" are toys is one of the stupidest things i can think of without the word religion in it.

What did I tell you about using standard paragraph structure? Stop putting random carriage returns in your posts unless you want me as your personal editor.

[wautd]

It's a toy. A fun toy I might add

[The Spartan]

It does offend me to a certain degree. I've been using guns, real ones mind you, since I was in grade school and have always been taught a healthy respect of weapons in general and guns in particular. I would be willing to wager that the children who carry toy guns everywhere are not taught the same respect/rules for firearms that were hammered into me. The end result of that is when/if they find a real gun, treat it like a toy and someone gets hurt or worse.

That said, I wouldn't condemn toy guns outright. I don't have any problem, necessarily, with children playing with toy guns but what you're describing(the shopping mall) is going overboard in my opinion.

[Durandal]

It doesn't offend me, but it doesn't strike me as particularly smart. As Mike said, kids have been killed because they were brandishing toy firearms in public.

[Chmee]

I just wag my finger at them and say 'You're gonna put your eye out with that thing!'

I don't have a problem with the little savages carrying around toy guns, but it's never too early to start teaching gun etiquette .... if you point it at a stranger and say 'bang' then the toy gets put away.

[Zoink]

I had a huge arsenal of toy guns, everything from toy handguns/revolvers to a large machine gun. "War" was a regular game in my neighbourhood. It was rural Quebec, so police were non-existent (they were somebody you called in an emergency and they might show up 40 minutes later if you're lucky).

My father was a regular hunter/trapper, and most fathers were at least regular hunters. Pretty much every kid was taught the difference between toys/fantasy/games and reality. Kids had their toys: toy guns, cap guns, water guns, etc. We'd play with those, pretending we're shooting each other. But then we were usually given other real weapons at various ages, with the associated responsibility of handling them correctly: BB gun, pellet gun, bow, 22 rifle, etc. Failure to handle those correctly or to treat them as anything but dangerous items would have resulted in revoking of access to said items and probably a red ass. Trying to access your parent's small arsenal of hunting rifles would have been similar. However it was never an issue because we understood the difference.

So, I don't personally don't see a serious problem with toy guns if you have parents who teach you the responsibility of treating an item with the respect it requires. In regard to the thread's topic, this may include not playing with toy guns in certain public places because of the threat of it being taken for a real gun.

[Surlethe]

I've got no problem with toy guns as long as the kids are taught gun etiquette, especially in public. If not, then the toys should get confiscated.

[WyrdNyrd]

Thanks, guys. Just like I hoped, your replies have helped me articulate why I felt offended by what I saw. To paraphrase:

"Even toy guns should be treated with some measure of the respect due to real guns, and random brandishing in public is probably not displaying that respect."

I can guarantee you that the kids I have seen were not taught a damn thing about gun safety - We're talking lower-middle-class South Africa here, given the locations in which I have seen it. (I've never seen anything nearly as coarse in the upper-class malls like Sandton City.)

I just got the impression of harried, distracted parents who, when faced with a toddler throwing a tantrum when they left that morning to go shopping, just gave in and let him take his favourite toy, bugger the consequences.

[Plekhanov]

It's fucking stupid for a kid to get in the habit of carrying toy guns around in public. Kids have been shot in low-light conditions by paranoid police officers before for that sort of thing.

That could easily have happened to two members of the 'Assasins Guild' at my uni last year. They were waiting outside a fellow members house with toy guns in order to “assassinate him”, a member of the public not in on their little game spotted them and understandably immediately called the police, cue all kinds of armed response unit related hilarity.

[Glocksman]

I've got no problem with toy guns as long as the kids are taught gun etiquette, especially in public. If not, then the toys should get confiscated.

It's not the little kids that are the problem, it's the dumbass teenagers who do it that are. People have indeed been shot by cops and armed civilians for apprearing to threaten their lives with what later turned out to be a toy gun.

As someone who has almost shot one such dumbass (car screeches to stop beside me in traffic. dumbass jumps out and points gun at me. said dumbass was really aiming at his buddy on the other side of my car. I had my pistol halfway out of the holster and was crawling under the carseat when I realized it was a toy.) who was playing Laser Tag, let me say that 'If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and otherwise acts as a duck, it's guilty of impersonating a duck in duck season'.

In other words it's (carrying toy guns in public places) a goddamned stupid thing for teens to do.

[gizmojumpjet]

As someone who has almost shot one such dumbass (car screeches to stop beside me in traffic. dumbass jumps out and points gun at me. said dumbass was really aiming at his buddy on the other side of my car. I had my pistol halfway out of the holster and was crawling under the carseat when I realized it was a toy.) who was playing Laser Tag, let me say that 'If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and otherwise acts as a duck, it's guilty of impersonating a duck in duck season'.

Have no fears Glocksman, I predict that Darwin will get this shining light sooner or later...

[Chmee]

It's not the little kids that are the problem, it's the dumbass teenagers who do it that are. People have indeed been shot by cops and armed civilians for apprearing to threaten their lives with what later turned out to be a toy gun.

As someone who has almost shot one such dumbass (car screeches to stop beside me in traffic. dumbass jumps out and points gun at me. said dumbass was really aiming at his buddy on the other side of my car. I had my pistol halfway out of the holster and was crawling under the carseat when I realized it was a toy.) who was playing Laser Tag, let me say that 'If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and otherwise acts as a duck, it's guilty of impersonating a duck in duck season'.

In other words it's (carrying toy guns in public places) a goddamned stupid thing for teens to do.

Teens? That's a whole different question ... any teenager running around in public with a toy gun is (a) just embarassing him or herself and (b) begging for an accidental shooting by somebody acting in perceived self-defense, as G'man was in this case.

[hypernova]

I dont see anything wrong with kids having toy guns, so long as their not acting like their shooting somone. the only problom that i see ever accuring is parents not raising their children properly and the kids grows up to be a maniac, parents beware please bring your children up properly, if u screw up a lot of people are gonna end up dead.

all this being basically a reiteration of the above.

[Glocksman]

As someone who has almost shot one such dumbass (car screeches to stop beside me in traffic. dumbass jumps out and points gun at me. said dumbass was really aiming at his buddy on the other side of my car. I had my pistol halfway out of the holster and was crawling under the carseat when I realized it was a toy.) who was playing Laser Tag, let me say that 'If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and otherwise acts as a duck, it's guilty of impersonating a duck in duck season'.

Have no fears Glocksman, I predict that Darwin will get this shining light sooner or later...

I can make light of it now but at the time I was a combination of enraged, scared to death, shaking like a leaf once the 'danger' had passed, and profoundly grateful that I hadn't shot him.
I don't think he (my ranting at him was probably incoherent ) ever realized that if I had been maybe a half second faster on the draw, he'd have had a magazine of Hydra-Shoks for lunch out of the Smith 3913 that I carried at the time.

Hopefully at a later point he realized just how dumb doing that kind of thing in public is.

[salm]

It doesn´t offend me and around here it´s no problem. People don´t have guns so kids are extremely unlikely to find a gun anywhere. Every sane policeman will think that a kid with a gun is a kid with a plastic gun.

Now it´s more complicated with teens and soft air guns which often look very realistic. There haven´t been any dead or injured people who used softair guns yet but a couple of cases in which policemen almost shot teens.
Police are concerned and have issued warnings that the new laws which allows selling softair guns to minors will increase the chance of people getting shot.

They should just outlaw replicas. Just make them pink or something and the problem will be solved.

[Vendetta]

Doesn't America currently have laws about toy guns having to be in bright and profoundly unrealistic colours?

I used to be rather fond of my capguns. (though they were reasonably 'realistic', they were all old cowboy guns. I even used to have a miniature derringer one shot capgun)

[Glocksman]

Doesn't America currently have laws about toy guns having to be in bright and profoundly unrealistic colours?

I used to be rather fond of my capguns. (though they were reasonably 'realistic', they were all old cowboy guns. I even used to have a miniature derringer one shot capgun)

I think there's a federal requirement that the muzzle be bright orange or something.

When I was a kid, I had a full size real-looking Walther PPK capgun.
It was for playing James Bond.

[felineki]

I don't see anything out-and-out wrong with it... It's a toy, not a real weapon. However, in today's society where so many people arm themselves with such weapons for either immoral or seemingly non-existant reasons, I don't think it's really the brightest thing to do.