[lnsru]

I can imagine, that some primitive gripper is many times more expensive than this offensive component. With a gripper robot must be also bigger and wider as well as more expensive.

As I can see in my home country (ex Soviet Union), parents have no problems when little kids play with guns, tanks or planes. Germans, for example, avoid this. I have mixed feelings, I love peace, but the guns also exist in this world.

[TomMarius]

I'm from the former Eastern Bloc. Not playing with a toy gun as a child is seen as weird. It's something that never happens, everyone has used a toy gun many many times and never ever thought it's wrong.

[yellowapple]

Same deal here in at least some (most?) parts of the US (the vocal minority of overzealously-violence-averse helicopter parents notwithstanding). Cap guns, squirt guns, Nerf guns, you name it, we had it (and to my knowledge still have it). Such toys are increasingly-frequently disallowed in schools, but they're still prevalent in homes and toy stores nationwide.

[dragandj]

When I was a pre-school child, most kids' parents didn't have money to buy toy guns often, but we made toy guns ourselves from sticks, and these worked quite well :)