Quote Originally Posted by king2005
I had barbies, Ninja Turtles, toy guns & shoot em up games.. I'm not going around shooting or killing people. I use to even own guns & NEVER thought of harming anybody. I still have a pellet pistol that has been collecting dust for a couple years as I have no real use for it, nor a place to shoot it.

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My friends & I use to play cops & Robbers & sometimes turn on other players & try to take over the game. We had water guns, those noise guns & nerf guns. When I have kids, they'll be raised the same way & will have fun playing with brightly coloured guns & learn that play shooting an adult is a bad thing, but play shooting a friend during a game is just fine.
Well said. Parents need to take the responsibility of teaching their children the difference between fantasy and real life. My father played Cowboys & Indians growing up, I played Cops & Robbers, my brother used to be a pirate, complete with a "sword" and make me walk the plank, and none of us have ever even remotely entertained the thought of actually hurting anyone else. Hell, my family used to do Civil War reenactments and my dad and brother would shoot actual guns (filled with blanks, not bullets) but not even that ever made my brother - who was 12 when we started - ever think to attack anyone with a real gun/weapon.

I personally think that too many people these days are looking to put the blame ANYWHERE else but on themselves. The amount of ridiculous, frivolous lawsuits is enough to prove it.

But I digress. One of the best things about being able to play games like Pirates or Cops & Robbers was that my imagination was allowed to go into overdrive. No longer was I Jaime. I was a princess who had been captured by an evil pirate. I was a brilliant detective going after the worst bad guy in the history of bad guys. One of the things that my teachers ALWAYS had to say about me to my parents was that I had a terrific imagination. It's because I was allowed to use and expand it.