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My 3 year old daughter does too We're mostly ignoring it or telling her "guns aren't nice, never shoot them at people." We're mostly hoping it will go away on its own. My daughter is definitely one who is more interested in anything that is forbidden though.

@BadgerMom: That's bull. I have a 3.5 year old boy who does not talk about guns at all. He mentioned "shooting" once and we asked him if he knew what it meant and he had no idea. We told him it's a way to hurt people, like hitting. And we don't go around pretending to hurt people. He hasn't brought it up again, that was a few months ago.

If he ignored what I told him, there would some sort of consequences. A time out or losing some sort of privileges. I am extremely anti-gun and do not think guns are toys.

My daughter is 2 and she hasn't done this yet. I'm following along because I'm curious how others are handling this situation.

My husband owns probably 15 guns and recreational shooting is a big part of our lifestyle so she's bound to become interested eventually.

My ECE professors actually mostly said gun play was normal, so I don't really make a point out of preventing it here. We don't really limit their dramatic play at all, actually. HOWEVER, our kids don't watch anything with guns and therefore it hasn't even really come up outside of the real life guns we have in our home. I wouldn't be shocked if it does through other kids though.

That said, we do try to help them process their dramatic play, or at least for us to understand. We ask them why they're doing what they're doing/saying what they're saying, we talk about those feelings and activities. I wouldn't want to make a huge deal out of it because I think it could be a negative attention seeking thing, especially if they see another kid getting negative attention for it. My dd's 3 yo teacher mentioned that this is very typical for around age 3.

We (well, dh) own guns, and that's not going to change anytime soon. My daughter has always been taught they are a grown up tool, and that real guns can kill. That they can send someone to the hospital, and that that person may never come back. I know that's very blunt but it's worked around here. I don't touch guns either because she knows they serve a very specific purpose and mommy has nothing to do with that. She knows she can't touch them until she is a grown up and can learn for herself (and obviously, but I'll put this out there because this is the internet, she won't have free access, ever.)

D (4yo) talks about guns and blasters and lasers, etc. He knows that real guns hurt people and they are not for play. He knows he is not supposed to shoot at people, and if we catch him doing it, we remind him no shooting at people and tell him if he does it again he goes to time out. Usually that's enough to stop it. I don't feel like letting him pretend play guns is doing any harm. I specifically remember pretending with guns as a kid, and I'm now very much in support of stricter gun laws. I think that teaching children safety in relation to guns is important, and ignoring their existence doesn't really help.

Sometimes I wish that not EVERYTHING he picks up has to be turned into a gun or blaster of some sort (literally - he picked up a pencil the other day and turned it into a bubble gum blaster). But he knows what the rules and limits are, so for now that's good enough for me.

While I don't agree that it's in our DNA, I do agree that kids may at some point make a weapon out of something as simple as a can....my son called something a grenade the other day, he's 6.

I try not to act too shocked when it happens but just talk about it in a matter of fact way. The item in question was an air canister for a whipped cream bottle and I just said that's interesting and moved on. He never mentioned it again.