Nice pics, LB. I don't think that we'd see pictures like that, even from an army family.
Oh, we encourage our boys to play with dolls. Just kidding.
You are? G.I. Joe, Transformers, boys do play with dolls here, oh, wait, we call them "action figures".
No, back about 10-20 years ago there was such a thing as toy guns. But you hardly see them in stores anymore. There was a big drive (don't really know who started it, when or why). Parents make a huge deal of them, especially if they look real. The idea is to keep real guns locked away and hidden from children. But if a child were to bring a water gun to school and it looks real, it would cause chaos in school or even in a neighborhood.
I'm too young to know the whens, whys and hows of our gun society so if someone who was there can explain, that would be great.
I had plenty of toy guns, some looking very real including a rather convincing water gun I had until the late 1990s (which was actually used as a prop in some college plays).
It's responsibility that wasn't taught to a lot of people. My father in law is a big NRA person, he has more guns than I can count and 4 kids. Each kid was taught (by the age of 12) how to use, load, clean, maintain, etc.. a gun. They were not allowed to play with toy guns because he believes that guns are not toys (rightfully so). None of them ended up in trouble or robbing banks, etc..
It is fascinating seeing other cultures and not from a "tourist" perspective.
