[analognoise]

If you remove guns, children (boys) will use sticks as swords and hit each other with them.

If they have no knowledge of swords, they'll hit each other with sticks. Can't get much more primitive than a stick.

What would that relative measurement tell you? Nothing. The mixture is different for each kid. But I can tell you the play fight, with whatever tools they think are appropriate, is 100% universal.

In fact if a boy didn't do that at all, I'd honestly have him tested for a developmental delay.

[redleggedfrog]

I have a picture of me at age 4 on the wall behind my computer, out camping. I've got a stick. To this day, when walking through the woods, I see a stick and think, "Hmm, that's a pretty good one, might pick that up."

I have always just assumed, once being boys, that other men understood that the allure of a weapon, even just a stick, is so instinctive that we all understood it intrinsically.

[irrational]

Whenever we go hiking the kids pick up tons of sticks (both boys and girls). Not just one or two, but so many that their pockets and hands are stuffed and they are trying to get me to carry some for them. They insist on taking them home, but fortunately quickly lose interest in them once we are home so we can quietly get rid of them.

[simion314]

it is true, and I was not trying to blame anyone , if you try to re-read again where my comments started, I was trying(and probably failing) to explain why some gun related images will be shocking for someone is Europe where for someone in US is natural and I was trying to explain how are guns so popular even if there are no guns that you can actually see(again there is no blame since I don't think there is something bad that someone plays with a toy gun or with a gun in a video game).

Other example of shocking image/video for someone like me , a father sending his 10(or younger son in the house to bring his shotgun outside, or a different father training his 10 years old daughter to shoot a shotgun (or maybe are rifles I don't know exactly what the guns were)

[LyndsySimon]

You’re absolutely right, it’s cultural. I’m a youth firearms instructor and it’s been interesting to learn the parents’ reasons for encouraging their children.