I didn't buy guns for my son and discouraged others from buying them for him.  I did let him play with gifted water pistols on rare occasions.   It just seemed wrong to me to have a child playing with a replica of a weapon that could kill people ... a sweet little innocent child saying "bang, bang, you're dead".     However, he would pick up a stick and make a gun toy out of that.     And, now, he plays games on his computer that involve shooting people ...

I relate to that.

I was really anti toy guns (as well as sex biased toys in general) but my son used to turn everything into a gun as soon as he could walk. I have no idea where it came from as we don't watch anything violent and there was no-one around him who would have taught him that.

It must be just 'in' some boys.

I also refused to buy him war related toys. So when Action Man was all the rage I bought him a Ken doll instead. It was Movie Ken really sweet with real hair and chinos. 

My son refused to play with him.

Then someone bought him an Action Man and I was pleased to see he started playing with Movie Ken at the same time. Until it was pointed out to me that the only reason he played with Movie Ken was so that Action Man could shoot him in a battle. 😐

And as Katy says, now he plays 'shoot em up' games on the computer. X-(