Personally, I can see both sides. I think it does depend on the parents a lot, teaching about safety, etc. There are plenty of kids who are not harmed by playing with toy guns as kids, but if they don't understand that real guns are not toys then there can be a problem. Our society is so violent already, it's so sad. I never had toy guns as a child, basically because I never had the desire. I think I do remember playing cops & robbers with neighbors, but we used our fingers as the guns.

I don't have kids yet, but when I do I think that I will try to keep them from playing with lots of violent toys, and certainly keep them from the violent video games and tv.