We recently had an experience at the park:
A young boy of about five, that we just met at the park, has a transforming toy firearm. The toy is gleaming white and silver. It switches from a toy gun to a toy knife. The boy holds his toy gun with pride and points it directly at Bluey’s head. The boy shouts out “Bbbbbang! Bbbbang!” And pretend rounds are fired into our son’s head. The boy declares with glee, “You’re dead! You’re dead!” and he proceeds to push Bluey to the ground and then turns to fire on his next victim. The mother of this child is on the perimeter of the play area. She shouts out to her son, “If you hit anyone with that gun, it is put away. No second chances.” Her son continues his pretend slaughter of playing youngsters.
Children have participated in variations of “good guy vs. bad guy” for centuries. But when we allow them to run rampant through a playground, pretend killing children with enthusiasm and getting physically aggressive with each other, we are teaching them those behaviors are acceptable. If you are going to let your kids play with guns, we think that there should be some very clear rules about acceptable behavior and where the toy is allowed.
We are very anti-gun, regardless of gender. You won’t find a toy gun in our house. We support gun control and our children know that they are not allowed to play with guns. We believe that when you allow a toy gun into the mix, you are saying that guns are okay. It is not a message we wish to pass onto our children.
But we understand that not everyone shares our views. We don’t prevent our children from playing with people that think differently. And we try to teach them how to deal respectively and intelligently with anyone that presents opposing positions or behavior. But this playground experience left us a bit stunned.
What would you have done in this situation, regardless of your viewpoint of gun control?