Parenting Practices: Guns

We are a family that plays with guns.  There is a lot of controversy about letting kiddos play with guns so I thought I would give my two cents on the topic.


I am not personally a fan of gun play with children.  It is hard for me to see my sweet innocent children playing with things that are far from sweet and innocent.  There are two set backs with my feelings on the subject.

1. Kids seem to play guns no matter how hard you work to keep anything remotely gun like out of the house
2. My husband LOVES guns and we have to have some sort of compromise.

So we have rules.

1. Never point a gun at another person unless you are playing a game and they also have a gun.
2. If someone asks you to not point a gun at them you must respect their request.
3. Muzzle control.  Treat every gun, even toy guns, like it is loaded.
4. We don't have realistic looking toy guns.  Aaron carves guns out of wood and we keep them wood colored.  We also have Nerf Dart Guns.
5. When friends come over who are opposed to guns, we do not play guns.
6. The real guns that are in the house are unloaded, out of reach, locked, ammo in a separate location and keys hidden.

Our goal in all this is to help the kids understand that guns are dangerous things that can hurt and even kill someone.  In so doing we hope that they will learn to use guns properly and safely.