I thought my little boys were the only ones to chew their toast into the shape of guns! It is so fascinating to me how universal and inborn the love for weapons, battles, car crashes, etc. seems to be with boys! So I, too, have relaxed my initial "no weapons" stance. They also build them out of legos, duplos, and of course sticks. I really like what your brother wrote about educating our boys & not making guns so forbidden and mysterious - that makes sense to me.