Carrying toy guns in public - Does it offend you?

[Julhelm]

Teach the kids that you are not supposed to point any weapon-like object at people, and especially not at the police.

I don't see any reason at all as to why toy weapons or airsoft replicas should be banned/outlawed as long as any problem can be dealt with by simply have parents do their job of raising kids properly.

[Agent Fisher]

Personally I think it is a bad idea for kids to be carrying toy guns out in public like a mall or something like that. Now when it comes to just playing around in a field or ina private building, or something like that go for it. When I was young, between me and a friend we had two thompsons, a few M-16s, a M-16/M-203(which was mine, I loved that thing, shot little red balls from the -203), four shotguns, two L-85s. And a buttload of pistols. All toys of course. We (us and a bunch of friends) would run around for hours 'shooting' each other in our chruch.

[salm]

I´ve actually had policemen point their guns at my knee because i was carying a beretta softair gun.
We were playing in a new multi story house that wasn´t finished yet and someone called the police. We were around 15 years old and back then you had to be 18 to buy such a gun.
The cops came, aimed at us, we put the guns down, they didn´t shoot, they didn´t know what the hell soft air guns were, thought they were toys and therfore legal for minors and we didn´t get charged. But almost shot. Pretty scary, now that i tink of it.

[chaoschristian]

I would not say that I am 'offended.'

I do get greatly concerned for reasons pointed out here - namely that it could get a kid killed.

I made an abortive attempt to keep guns away from my son when he was younger - how naive I was. I gave up when he started to turn his french fries into pistols (just like my daughter would turn her french fries into dolls.)

Playing soldier (or in our case - Clone Trooper) is a healthy, normal (and in the case of a boy, most likely inevitable) part of growing up and exercising a healthy imagination.

I just thinks its important for parents to exercise good judgement and discretion on when and where junior gets to play with his guns.

[Trytostaydead]

It depends where really. In the US, little kids with toy guns is dangerous. All these news articles about little kids or dumbass teenagers running around with airsoft guns (a fun game in itself ruined by teens).

However, in places like Korea it is extremely common to see children running around with airsoft guns holding large scale neighborhood battles and no one blinks an eye as long as they don't shoot someone who's not playing.

[Sea Skimmer]

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.

You know, shopping malls tend to SELL toy guns. Perhaps you should take your business elsewhere if you have a problem with them.

[Kamakazie Sith]

"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."

Yes, but then again children should be taught respect in general. That means you don't annoy other people.

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.)

Wait, you're making judgment on their real gun safety based off how they play with toy guns? I think that's a bit silly.

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.

I think you're exaggerating the consequences here. We're not talking about some dark alley that cops patrol. We're talking about a shopping mall, that's well lit.

[Mrs Kendall]

Cpl Kendall and myself will not allow our children to own anything that even resembles a gun because guns are not toys and that's that. No buts about it. We lived on base a few years ago when he was in the military and all the kids there were all acting like they were proud to be military brats who owned toy guns. It pissed us off so much that before our kids got old enought o start playing with them we moved. We will never move back on base again, no matter what the circumstances are. Kids shouldn't have guns be play or real ones because it just teaches that they are not such a big deal and are at times fun to play with.