kids and toy guns, not out of line?

[Maccabee 2A]

Originally Posted by TaxPhd

There are plenty of airsoft guns that are pretty much exactly copies of actual guns, all the way down to the rollmarks, caliber designations, etc. The good ones are actually licensed by the firearm manufacturers themselves. While airsoft guns sold in the US are supposed to have an orange tipped barrel, the orange is easily painted over. Guns purchased in the far East frequently don't have the orange tip. Many of these are such good reproductions that it is impossible to tell the difference between the airsoft replica and the real gun without inspecting it. At 5 feet (or more) away? No way to tell the difference. "Toy guns" today can actually be the most realistic replicas ever created. Thing of the past? No way.

Actually, marking toy guns with orange can be counter intuitive. It's not that hard to paint a real gun with an orange tip to throw off cops. So the solution, as with real guns, is not the toy but the training of the child.

[TamaraSavannah]

Hmmmmmmmm.

First of all, your house, your rules.

Secondly, I had something of a similar problem at my brother's house when he was married and my niece (under 10 then) wanted me to play a game with her on their "wonderful interactive" TV gaming system. I have only encountered such systems as police training devices and as such, respond to them as "real". With such systems, it is not a game to me and counter to me to try to play them with an "interference program" (see below) in play.

SO, perhaps you can use something similar if it comes to "Why?" in that you don't think it is right in this world of ours, where it might be difficult to tell play from real......or you can just say, my house, my rules.

Now, about an interference program. When I play air hockey, I let my reflexes loose and I usually win. So that I can play with a child, I throw an interference "program" into my reflexes so I'm not so perfect. Ie, it is telling the reflexes....."Let the Wookie win some".

Originally Posted by chb119

We allow Nerf guns, the ones that you can tell a mile away they are fake.

Air-soft, no chance in hell. Kids tend to do odd things. In my younger days when I was a LEO, I came within an inch of sending hollow points into a 16 year old kid at point blank range. Why, because he thought it would be fun to run around with a air-soft with no painted tip. It's not unheard of for the nice well adjusted kid to make one stupid odd decision.

In the end your house your rules.

Even if the other person isn't packing.......two things about me are to strike in a split second of a perceived threat and to reach my maximum energy but not in a state of anger so to overwhelm their current energy state in a second.

Here's the catch: I started judo at 10 and when I got my warning from my father that if I seriously misbehaved, he would have to come after me with a baseball bat at 16. By that age, my skills were that good that they were quite visible.

One thing I didn't have, however, was the control of arrogant pride. I didn't learn that, the "I'm just going have to show this person it is useless to fight with me", the hard way till I was 18-19.

It takes a while to learn mental discipline like that; don't think that everyone will appreciate that one is just playing.

[TaxPhd]

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Actually, marking toy guns with orange can be counter intuitive. It's not that hard to paint a real gun with an orange tip to throw off cops. So the solution, as with real guns, is not the toy but the training of the child.

I'm not sure why this post was directed at me. I didn't have any commentary on whether orange tipped toys were a good or bad thing.