http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_kids/2015/07/should_you_let_your_kids_play_with_toy_guns_yes_but_keep_them_away_from.html

My 4-year-old can turn almost anything into an imaginary gun. A piece of wooden toy railroad track? Sure, it’ll take care of the bad guys. Although my son isn’t always acting out battle scenarios, he does it enough to make me wonder: Is this kind of play normal? Given this country’s devastating record of gun violence, should I be stopping him? Does allowing gun play somehow increase the risk that he will one day become a victim or an instigator of gun violence?