My next door neighbors provide care most days for their eight year old grandson, as their daughter is a (divorced single mom) flight attendant who will often be gone for days at a time. Even though they're pretty much pro-gun, one day the wife tells me "Oh no, we never allow Little Elrod to play with guns...they can really give a child the wrong ideas."
Well, watching Little Elrod play with my son on numerous occasions has allowed me to see the following: He has swung a hockey stick at my son, nearly knocking him out. He has thrown said hockey stick like a spear at my son, while my son was riding his bike. He has stood at the top of their "tree fort" and shot a pogo stick as though it were machine gun (no kidding-I'm sure it was on "full auto"
). He's also used that hockey stick to swing around, near my son's cranium. And last but not least, I've seen him point what appeared to be a loaded finger at my son and others (maybe it was a semi-auto...hard to tell if the safety was on).
My son has seen my guns and handled them, with the following caveat: Any time you want to see them or pick one up, ask me and I'll show you how and we'll do it together. So far, we've done that two or three times, but that's all. He rarely plays with the toy guns he has.
What conclusions can be drawn from this? I don't think restricting a child's access to toy guns will diminish his desire to "play guns." I do think trying to affect his behavior will yield long term results, and that includes above all
consequences of his behavior. Certainly restricting children from hockey sticks and pogo sticks may keep them safer (at least in our neighborhood), but that's rather convoluted logic, don't you think?
You can certainly keep toy guns away from a child, but if you think that will affect their behavior in any way as an adult, I think you're kidding yourself. geegee
