Storm Troopers and the 2nd Amendment

I had my first 2nd Amendment debate with my son recently at the kitchen table. I was eating breakfast. He had finished his cereal and was shooting at invisible robbers with a contraption built of legos.

“You know, kiddo, I don’t think guns belong at the breakfast table.”

“But, Mommy, I’m... I’m... What’s that word that means ‘saving’ but it’s different. Like what Superman does?”

“Defend?”

“Yes! I’m defending. The robbers want your cereal. I’m defending you.”

Great.

I remember having a talk with an older and wiser friend about the concept of banning violent toys from the house. She said she tried it for awhile when her son was born but quickly realized that they’ll build guns out of whatever they can find anyway, from wooden spoons to carrot sticks, and often what they build is far more dangerous than store-bought toys.

Shawn and I also briefly considered toy gun control when Luke was still in utero. Then we looked around at all the swords and daggers we had between the two of us and realized that we truly didn’t have a leg to stand on.

True to form, all through last weekend’s camping trip, my son was hunting for the perfect shaped sticks to use as blasters to defend us from stormtroopers, which apparently are a big problem on the Big Sur coast.

On Morning 3 in the woods, I wake up and go stumbling around the camp for the necessary things to make tea. Luke, who has been up and adventuring with Grandpa for some time, comes bounding up. He offers me an L-shaped stick by way of “good morning.” I took the offering in one hand while trying to convince the camping stove to boil water with the other.

“Phew, phew,” I obligingly said, while taking out the emperor’s attacking legions in the trees.

Luke tilted his head at me. “Mom. It’s not a gun. It’s a stick.”

Of course it is. Silly me.

The family’s camping adventures have been posted in photographic form if that interests you. Don’t think we caught any storm troopers on camera. They’re shy, I guess.