Shoot em Up

When the boys were toddlers I had a strict anti-gun toy rule in my home. They were not allowed in my house ever! Aaron’s brothers have never believed in this rule and without fail always ended up buying them some wildly inappropriate plastic toy gun for birthdays or as Christmas gifts. I would always throw them away.


Andrew and Jacob used to chew their sandwiches into the shapes of guns and run around pretending to shoot each other. They would fashion just about anything into a gun. It appeared my ban on toy guns was futile.

When Andrew was 5 we moved to a new home. There were so many kids in our neighborhood that it was like a 24 hour amusement park. Many of the kids had toy guns. I eventually gave in about the guns. Now I don’t care so much, also they are old enough  that the allure of playing with such things is pretty much gone.

Last Sunday we had Conrad and Jesse over to celebrate Jake’s birthday. We ate cake, and sang Happy Birthday, and then Jake opened his gifts. Conrad bought him Call of Duty, a game in which you shoot people.  Jesse bought him a bb gun.

Can you believe that!?

Forget about my toy gun rule now my kid has a real one!

Aaron tried to pull the same stunt with Andrew on his tenth birthday. He called me from the store to alert me that he was purchasing our kid a bb gun. I told him that if he came home with such a thing he might as well get used to the idea of sleeping on the couch for the rest of his life. He didn’t buy it. However the following year he did. Andrew opened up his gift and looked at in with a mixture of fear and sheer panic.

“Bring it back,” He told Aaron “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

It was returned the following day. Aaron told me that I was a brainwasher. I’m okay with that.

Jake didn’t have the same reaction. He was so excited and an outing to shot bottles in the wilderness has already been scheduled. I told Jesse that when and if one of my children loses an eyeball from a bb I will kill him. He didn’t seem to care.

The Brauns are annoying.