Let the Boys Play!!!

[MCrupe]

Playing is what kids need to do for healthy development. It is the parents job to keep tabs on their kids psychologically to avoid becoming the adam lanza type with a secretive lust for killing. My boys shoot each other all the time and switch off on whos the good guy and whos the bad guy. My younger son gets upset when his older brother and friends make him play bad guy alot. Thats a good psychological sign to note.

When my older son was heavily into Star Wars, his favorite character for the longest time was Anakin. He knew that Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Several times we talked about what the whole series was really about, good vs evil. What is gained by being good or evil and how your choices affect everyone else. It was during one of these conversations at 6 yrs old when he told me, "Dad, I know none of its real, I know the difference between fake and real, I just like how Anakin dresses...". A huge sigh of relief let out as I knew we were on the right track.

Parents just need to smartly be involved and actually give a **** about how their children are constantly developing.

+1

 

[xfrostybeersx]

You should have swatted the Boys Father on the Butt for being an Asshat!

My boys (6 & 4) always play toy guns and I have the Same rule.

NO GUNS in the face or at the Dog.

 

[LarryC]

When you take a look back at my generation - I was born in 1941, it tells a lot! We played cowboys and Indian's. We played war, having many of our relatives just coming back from WW2, No one really wanted to play the Nazi's or Jap's but we always chose sides. We made bows and arrows, sometimes to the distress of the chickens in the neighborhood. (had to have feathers to make arrows). The only injury other than skinned knee's was when we decided to shoot arrows straight up to see how high we could send them. This resulted in one hitting a friends toe -right through his tennis shoe. Took a couple weeks (and some stern warnings against repeat games of this sort) before it healed.

Almost every home at that time had firearms openly displayed in the home with ammo visible or in a drawer under the guns. I would say 90% of the boys I new and some of the girls had BB or Pellet guns by age 13 ~14, and 22's by 16. Most of the boys hunted Squirrel and Rabbits.

There were no Video games or computers - no TV until I was around 8 or 9, but we had movies and Drive ins. Many of the films of the day were quite violent, War movies and shoot-ems up Cowboy movies. We had the Lone Ranger, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, later Sky King, Captain Video. We also had radio shows with a lot of violence. None of these were "politically correct" (which is bull**** in my estimation-we were always taught to tell the truth, not skate around an issue).

None of my friend from school ever became bad guys, of 34 people in my Senior class they became 3 Engineers, 2 Doctors (1 was the State Health commissioner) 1 Vet, 8 or 9 Farmers, animal breeders, 1 Truck driver, 2 teachers and several manufacturing and steel workers. None became Bad Guys, or shot anyone (other than in Viet Nam in service of our country).

If we got into trouble in school - not rare - things like not doing homework, fighting, copying an answer etc., we were paddled at the school. We sure didn't complain to our parents - when they found out it usually resulted in another (harder paddling). Many of our teachers carried a ruler in their hand while teaching, often to slap your hand when you teased the girl in front of you by pulling their hair or something similar, sometimes to rap you in the top of your head if you were daydreaming or talking to someone in class. Didn't produce any lasting injuries, but sure gave us memories that stayed with us forever (and taught us to pay attention to important things in our life.)

 

[Hookeye]

I had toy revolvers, holsters and funky red hat as a small kid. Then pops got me a military looking toy rifle with fake cartridge (visible when working the bolt). That was sooooo cool.

Went to Geary's Army Surplus (Dave and John) when I was around 1st grade. Neato US army helmet had my full attention, but my dad held out a Marlin Glenfield 20 used, and asked if I wanted that instead.

I really really wanted that helmet, but didn't want to disappoint my dad (parents divorced- every other weekend with dad). He told me, that if I chose the real gun, that I couldn't have any toy guns, that this was special, serious adult responsibility stuff, and the choice was mine. I said "rifle".

Learned to shoot OK......had a lot of fun. 2nd grade? Got a brand new 10/22 walnut. Think it was $50 retail LOL.

Then it was a .222 Rem 660, and Ruger 3 screw handguns.

Been buying/shooting/selling guns ever since............and funny thing is............I have NEVER GOTTEN MY DAMN HELMET!

Proly never will

 

[Spike_351]

It is wrong to point your finger at someone and pretend to shoot them.
It is OK to play video games where the objective is to kill people.
It is OK to watch movies where killing is glorified.
It is OK to listen to rap where "i am gonna smack my b--ches or pop a cap in your ..."

Am I the only one confused by this?

And, not that I recommend this, but what if someone turned that father in for child abuse? Beating his son, especially out in public? The trauma that the OP was exposed to by having to witness this cruel and unusual act of a father that is not sensitive to his sons need to actually have a pair. (not sure if that should have been in purple)

I wouldnt really consider a swat on the butt chikd abuse, I had a great dad, but he wasnt afraid to bust my a** if needed, I suffered no abuse or mental anguish from this.

 

[Rbadger]

Far to many parents are content to let someone else raise their children. Whether it be the school, or the government or the TV. I don't know about you guys but when I was a kid we had 3 tv channels and one of them was PBS (loved me some Marty Stouffer's Wild America) But in the summer I forgot we even owned a TV. We were outside from dawn to dark and sometimes later if we could get a good game of nightime hide and seek together. And we played guns. ALOT. But we also hunted and we were around real guns and we knew the difference and knew the damage a real gun could do. Alot of parents now won't invest the time needed to teach their kids any kind of morality or integrity so it doesn't surprise me that random dad was upset by his son's actions. Dad was scared. All he saw was violence to a random stranger and the media tells him thats bad. It all makes me very sad.

 

[IndianaResident]

So, im walking through Rural King and having a great day. As I am walking past the toy section, a little boy (probably 6 years old) jumps out with a toy gun and "shoots" me. Being in a great mood, and not wanting to dissapoint the little guy, I dropped to my knees clinching my "wound" and I slowly "died". As I stood back up to congratulate the young man on his perfect shot, his Dad came running over and ripped the gun out of his hands. He then proceeded to yell at the young man for pointing a gun at a person, and gave him a swat on the butt. I also heard on the Glenn Beck program yesterday that two 6 year old boys in Baltimore were suspended from school becuase while playing cops and robbers during recess, they were prending their fingers were guns. COME ONE PEOPLE! I have 3 young kids myself, and I am pro gun safety in every aspect of the word. My oldest (4 year old son) loves to look at the guns, and help me clean them. We always practice gun safety and he takes it very seriously. But, when it comes to his toy guns, you better believe I let him shoot me. What fun are toy guns to little boys if they cant play cops and robbers, or cowboys and indians, or army? The only rule we have about playing with the toy guns, is you can't point them in peoples faces. My sons absolutley love to play war with me. They always seem to win, and they love when daddy gets shot and dies. Does this make me a bad father? Does this desensitize my children into thinking that violence is fun and okay? NO! This is how boys have been playing since the 1800's.

HECK, NO !!!!! It makes you, a GREAT FATHER, as far as I am concerned !!!!!

I think that's a tale of not one, but Two great fathers. They happen to have different philosophies, but I bet both their kids grow up to be responsible gun owners.

 

[TopDog]

It's absolutely nuts. First the children are allowed to watch TV, movies with horrendous graphic gloried violence. Then they are inundated with violence again glorified from music. And to top it off a nice unhealthy dose of non reality violence from video games. Then the "plat de résistance", the morons that perpetrate the violence, the anti hero actors get on TV and demand confusing conflicting action be taken.

Then when this social experiment is out in public and incocently responds to the programing he has received he is punished. Wow talk about how to manufacture whack jobs en masse.

Now before you go commenting on how it's always been like that; no it has not. When I was kid there were clear good guys and bad guys. Not bad guys running around murdering, committing every crime known to man and then portrayed as misguided really good underneath sweethearts. I was taught the difference between good and bad. The lines were not blurred like they are now by TV, movies, music and video games.

Yeah with moderation and guidance none of these things on their own will produce the POS that we have running the streets now. But take away the supervision, the guidance and combine all the negative input and you end up with mass shootings, flash mobs and violence extraordinaire as you see in the streets the likes of Chicago.

 

[jgreiner]

We grew up with army men, entire battles sets for toys. heck, we even had real WWII canteens, ammo belts, ammo boxes, helmets, a gas mask, and cook sets (brought back from Europe by our great uncle). And when we got old enough, we took GI Joe and Cowboy Bob out to our shooting range, and used them for target practice.

i agree...let them play.

 

[BogWalker]

I'm a youngin' on these boards, and even I have fond memories of toy guns, especially cap guns. Wal-Mart used to sell nice metal ones a few years ago. Now they barely carry them, and the ones they have are entirely cheap bright orange plastic. They barely carry toy soldiers now as well. Loved toy soldiers as a child; they were second only to legos.

 

[SmartAsh25]

Yea I read a news story of a boy who pretended to throw a grenade at school and he ended up suspended I believe he was only in second grade! Sorry for my language but that's ****ed up! I have two young boys myself and me and daddy are already teaching them gun safety since we are a very pro gun family! But they have more toy guns in their room than Walmart has on their shelves and my 4yr old runs around playing army with his 1 1/2yr old brother trailing right behing him, guns in hand. My son even throws imaginary grenades..he'll run in a room and yell grenade everyone down and he literally dives to the floor. Lmao! I LOVE it. And if my kid ever gets in trouble for it when he gets into school I won't be one of those scared doormat parents who lets it go. I will fight it cause they are not gonna brainwash my kid into thinking guns=trouble. Hell no!

 

[BIGnTall83]

I was not brought up around guns, i did have a few, read FEW toy guns when I was young, but I played with them at my friend's house and had a cap gun stashed at my grandparent's . When I did finally get a BBgun at around 14ish... I treated it with the respect It deserved and enjoyed shooting the heads off of my GI Joes and 6" tall green army men.

Now my boys, 14 and 16, have been raised around guns by their grandfathers (ive only been in the picture for 6 years), they know how to use the tools for their intended purpose and respect the damage that they can cause. They have played with nerf, water, toy, cap guns and have played all of the violent video games from a young age, but they STILL know the difference and I have no doubt that they will continue through life respecting firearms and will become experienced shooters in the years to come.