I’m Horrified by My Kid’s Obsession With Toy Guns. What to Do?

But the symbolism and his incessant requests that we bankroll a bigger, faster, more expensive version of these “rifles” is making me sick. I don’t know how to handle it. I have talked to him about wars and mass shootings and what these guns mean to me and other people in society. But I’m his mom, and as a teenager, he especially doesn’t want to listen to me. He says he understands, but then only days later, he is showing me a listing for the new model he wants for Christmas. (He enlisted the help of a friend to buy him his first toy rifle because he was too afraid to ask me.)