I can’t think of a time in my life that I didn’t want to have a gun. When I was a little boy I thought toy guns, real guns and guns in general were the coolest thing in the world.

The only benefit I ever had in life is that I could read. I started reading quite early and the other gift was a wonderful mom who knew we were dead broke, but always took me to the library. (Thank you Andrew Carnegie. You did a lot of rotten things to really decent people but you made it up by giving me a library card in 1950.) I read James Fenimore Cooper. Thanks to my Uncle Barnie I read Zane Grey. I read books about the American Civil War, the American Revolution, the Second World War, taming the Old West and gangsters.

Pretty simple trivia question, what do all of those books have in common? Simple answer, guns.

I have a theory the only reason the First Amendment stays where it is, is because of the Second. And of course both of those cornerstones of our liberty are under attack. And that same group of intellectual nincompoops wants to feminize and take away from little boys in this country their constitutional, God-given right to have a toy gun.

Hunting became part of my life when I was about 12-years-old. I always wanted to hunt, but my father was not a hunter. So by saving my money from paper routes, working in pool rooms and bowling alleys and a stint in a delicatessen, I raised enough money to buy a BB gun and eventually my first .22.

I bought a .22 single shot JC Higgins rifle. It had a little stinger on the back of the barrel that you had to cock to enable it to fire. Thanks to my friends and me there probably wasn’t a wren or a songbird that was safe from our hunting expeditions (Yes I know Atticus Finch — never shoot a mocking bird).

Guns and boys are an intrinsic part of life, but with the advent of what’s happening to young boys in America today, toy guns are becoming a thing of the past.

The picture we have used to illustrate this column relates to a 1961 Ideal Toy ad starring Roy Rogers. It’s a sneaky little ad that every guy I’ve ever shown it to loves. The Derringer is hidden in the hat so you can easily shoot another kid when he approaches you. Who among us didn’t play army or guns or cowboys and Indians (or the politically correct cow persons and Native Americans) and really love it?

I can’t imagine myself at 10 years of age learning to play cooperative games and how to play well with others. Toy guns, pretend swords and rubber knives are the arsenal of a childhood democracy.

Why do you suspect that the progressive educators throw first graders out of school for turning their hands into little pistols? I’m a great believer in Lenin’s saying, “the purpose of terror is terror.” When you throw that little boy out you’re setting fear in the hearts of other little boys. The word comes down. Don’t be that kid. These people believe that these boys are influenced, predisposed, if you would, to violent behavior simply by possessing a toy.

Kids can make almost anything into a gun. I watched my son make a banana a gun once. Oftentimes as a kid we didn’t have any money for real toy guns. But that didn’t matter. A stick made a good rifle. Two fingers extended from the fist made a perfectly fine pistol. And you know what? The good guys always won.

There were lots of guns in my neighborhood when I was a kid. It didn’t turn anyone aggressive and of course there were no school shootings. Banning toy guns — do you really think it’s the same as putting armed guards in a school to protect children against people with real guns? Do you think throwing a little boy out of school for drawing a gun will prevent a sick and deranged individual from committing those acts of violence?

And how about squirt guns? My God, when spring hit it was baseball and squirt gun season. Rather than avoid the subject and pretend there’s not guns all around us, let your kids play guns and when they become old enough, do as my dad did. Find one of his drunken buddies to take me hunting. One of the greatest days of my life.

Keeping guns from kids doesn’t mean they’re never going to shoot someone else. It’s the forbidden fruit. My mother’s warnings during summer vacation to all of us was “Don’t go near the river. “ When I was a boy the Allegheny River was a lure. I was in my period of reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and no power on earth was going to keep me from the river. My mother’s warning, “don’t go near the river” — first place we went.

Kids who play with toy guns use them to fight bad guys. How’s that a bad thing? I actually think it can help a kid feel safe and make sense of the world around them.

So if you’re teaching your children all of these nonviolent, politically correct new speak thoughts, remember this. In the words of Mike Tyson, “Everybody’s got a plan till they get punched in the nose.” And then maybe it would have been better to teach your son to fight back.

Happy trails.

— Peter