The New Suburban Militia

I've been visiting my family in NC this weekend.  It's always interesting to go back home, I never know what I might see.  When I pulled into my sister's driveway the other day there were two middle school age boys cutting through her backyard.  One of them was carrying a large handgun.  I did a double-take and realized that it was a toy, a paint gun I think.  It was pretty disconcerting, though.

Today I was driving down her street and there were two different boys walking along the road carrying three large assault rifles, equipped with scopes and everything.  They also turned out to be paint guns or something like that - but still, I felt sort of like Marshall Law had been declared and I was grossly under prepared.

Since I have girls and thus far they have shown little interest in guns, I'm probably not going to run into this problem, but I really don't think I'd ever buy my kids these kinds of toys.  And I definitely wouldn't let them roam the neighborhood playing war games and scaring out-of-town visitors.  Although, I suppose that might be there plan - keep the outsiders out!