And you shouldn’t let your kids play with them.
Growing up, I was never allowed to have a cap gun, nerf gun, water gun, or anything else. That’s a rule I enforce with my kids.
Why?
Because we’ve got REAL GUNS in our house.
The kind that puts leaky holes into people.
And people are basically just souls surrounded by a giant blood and gore filled hydraulic bag. Poke a hole in the right place and things stop working. Poke enough holes, and the soul finds somewhere new to reside.
But the reason for this blog is that we went to a church members house for our small group meeting. My Church Life Group is pretty legit, we’ve had the same members for almost 4 years and we’re all close friends. Anyways, we brought our kids along, and my three year old daughter found a fake plastic shotgun… the toy sort that makes noises… picked it up and proceeded to start slaying everyone in the play room with it. Pew, Pew, Pew, and all that.
I don’t know where she learned that. I can’t think of any movies she’s seen with guns in them, except maybe the Incredibles… and she hasn’t been to the range with me yet…. I would joke that it’s in our bloodline, but there’s something about weaponry that arouses curiosity in most children. (I bet back in the day, dad’s had to tell their kids to stop playing with their swords lest they dull the blade.)
This is why, if you’ve guns in your house, you MUST instill the ‘Don’t Touch/Tell A Grownup’ rule. Because they’ll pick it up, swing it around, naturally figure out the grip, press the trigger and kablooey… something gets a hole punched through it at several thousand feet per second. That’s no bueno. Kid’s need to know if they see a gun to go tell an adult instead of playing with it. Otherwise, horrifying things can happen real quickly.
So we, as a society need to recognize that we live in the most armed culture that has ever existed on this wonderful planet – A country that has over 423,000,000 guns but only 327,000,000 people. (‘Murica!) With numbers like that, we should be cautious and reflective about allowing our children to play with toy guns.
Playing with toy guns WILL instill a lack of respect for a tool that can kill, and it WILL instill a lack of safety observation for the five rules. My daughter broke every single one of these when she picked up the fake shotgun:
The 5 Basic Principles of Gun Safety:
- Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
2. Always point your gun in a safe direction.
3. Never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot.
4. Keep your finger off the trigger until your ready to shoot.
5. Be sure of your target and what’s beyond.
Maybe you live in a Gun Free home (In Greta Thunberg’s voice “How DARE you?). But you still live in a very gun-centric society and you’ll never have complete observance and control over your child. They may be at a friends house and find one, or playing in an alley in Chicago, or whatever. But you don’t know, so teach them what to do if they find one.
Run and tell an adult.
And if you’ve got guns in your house, you need to inoculate them. Slowly build up an understanding of them and the dangers surrounding them.
When they’re little, let them watch you clean your guns. Let them ask curious questions, and give them good answers. Take away the ‘mystery’ from weapons. As they get older, let them hold them, under your guidance. Let them help disassemble and clean. And as they grow, take them to the range and show them what they can do. Blasting tomato cans, watermelons, etc will give them a suitable impression.
So inoculate your kids to guns.
Slowly and carefully, ensuring that they understand the five safety rules and that firearms are not toys.
And if they get into guns, you’ll never have to worry about them being able to afford drugs or voting Democrat.
Because ammo ain”t cheap, freedom ain’t free, and Democrats want to take your guns.
(Right Mr. “Oh Hell Yes” Beto?)
Gunpowder and Ink! 