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1:37:00 PM EDT
Hearing Run to the Hills -- Iron Maiden
Bang, Bang
Our neighbors and friends dropped by the other day, and one of them had a little toy gun with him, which Athena immediately appropriated and spent a better portion of the next day waving about. And this is how I learned that apparently, I really don't like toy guns.
This is not directly related to a knee-jerk dislike of guns. When I was younger, I was anti-gun and specifically vehemently anti-handgun. As I've gotten older, I've mellowed considerably on the issue; I consider it both impractical and constitutionally inadvisable to keep folks from their firearms. I still don't like handguns, but I also recognize that most people who have them aren't idiots. Most people treat their firearms with proper respect.
The idea of treating firearms with proper respect, in fact, is at the heart of my current problem with toy guns. I don't like the idea of my kid wildly waving around a representation of a weapon; it seems to inculcate some bad assumptions about how to handle the real things. By contrast, when Athena is somewhat older, I wouldn't have a problem with her grandfather teaching her how to shoot, because I know her grandfather knows guns, respects them, and would teach her how to handle a firearm responsibly. I'd rather have her handle a real gun (at an an appropriate age in the future) with total respect, than play with a fake one and wave around going "bang, bang."
So tell me: Am I thinking too hard about this, here?
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
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I don't know if you're thinking to hard about it, but you may be coming to the wrong conclusion.
As a child, which was not all that long ago, my parents decided that I whouldn't have any toy guns. The effect on me was to only want them more. I was positivly obessesed with guns. Every toystore I went into had a "Gun Section" that I was pulled to as though it were some sort of firearm black hole. At some point, my parents finally relented and I was allowed to have BB guns, which I was taught to handle safely.
Even now, at age 30, I sometimes find myself attracted to the "Gun Seciton". However, I don't own a gun. I can't think of a reason why I might need one. When I examine my desire rationally, I still don't really understand it, but I sometimes find myself paging through Gun mags.
I think my parents initial denial only intensified and fetishized my desire for guns. In the end, as someone else mentioned, there is little you can do to keep imginary guns out of her hands, and certainly nothing you can do to remove the cultural elements celebrating gun ownership and usage. The best you can do is (try) and make her understand that real guns aren't toys. Maybe 4/5 is too young for that? Dunno, not a parent myself (yet). -
By the way...kick ass song! You really DO have great taste in music. :-)
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No, you aren't thinking too hard. You are a parent. Our minds naturally go down these tangents. LOL I agree with you. Toy guns teach a reckless abandon...shooting and violence for the sheer joy of it. I won't buy them and don't approve of them. Later in life, I would support my son learning responsibility and respect for firearms. You never look at a gun the same way one you have held one in your hand and felt the force of it firing at a paper target. You can't help but imagine the damage it would do to a live target...it's scary.
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You probably are thinking too hard-- waving around a pen in the wrong hands can be pretty damaging, too, as you know-- but eminently less violent, methinks. In other words, I'm with ya all the way. Except I don't think there should be guns at all. I'm kinda John Lennonesque in my pollyannaism.
9/16/04 2:56 AM
YOU ASKED FOR IT... I STAND 100 % WITH YA ON THIS JOHN !!!
my answer is: YOU ARE THINKING AS A WISE MAN AND PARENT.