My little boy turned three last weekend among a gathering of his friends, balloons, a cake with construction equipment on it and road cone candles. He chose the decor. He only turns three once, right? As part of the occasion, a good friend of mine bought him a toy gun. This thing is incredible, complete with a silencer (screwed onto the barrel, it makes a quieter, more high pitched sound than the fake “bang” sound when the silencer is removed). The slide moves when you pull the trigger. It has an optic. The fake flashlight on the bottom tac rail obviously doesn’t work, but the gun is “fully loaded” (no pun intended). It looks fake, so no one should be freaking out. Unfortunately . . .
I’ve already been told what a failure I am as a mother for allowing him to play with his fake plastic green and orange gun, and for having friends that got him the gun in the first place. Roll on Wyoming!
We went through the safety rules rather thoroughly. My boy knows not to point his “weapon” at people or the cats or dogs. He doesn’t have great trigger control, but he just turned three, so we can work on that, especially since the gun doesn’t fire any projectiles. Saying that, a “bullet” would have helped with my gun safety lectures.
He’s slowly learning to identify the parts. We sit down and talk about what the slide is, what the grip is, and where the trigger is. He doesn’t like it when I remove the silencer either. He thinks it “looks silly” without it. Much like his sister, his interest stems from the fact that I have many guns and shoot frequently.
He loves to learn and talk to me about his gun. He loves feeling included with the rest of us; he was the only family member without a gun. He doesn’t even really play. He asks if he can shoot his gun and brings it to me when he’s done. He already understands more gun safety than most gun control advocates. I couldn’t be happier and more proud of him.