A while ago we told the Cub (age 4 & 3/4) we were going to take him to a museum. The following dialogue occurred:
Cub: “Will they have guns there?”
Us: “Not sure. Maybe.”
Cub: “Cool! will they let me shoot the guns?”
Us: “NO!”
Cub: “Will there be swords I can use?”
Us: “No.”
Cub: “What about a bow and arrow? I could shoot someone in the eye.”
Us: “NO!”
Cub (still hopeful): “An axe?”
Us: “No!”
He was just about to say “Wot abaht a pointy stick?”, I’m sure.
Where do little boys get all this from?
You tell him to shut up. Then drop a 16 ton weight on his head. 
My kids loved going to museums when they were small. Guns and pointy sticks never entered the equation. We’re talking science and history and bones and stuff.
A couple of years ago when my son was 12 we went to the new War Museum in Ottawa; he freakin’ loved it! Boys will be boys.
No all of anything want ______.
But generally, boys like to poke things. And blow things up. And shoot them and such.
What? No fresh fruit?
When boys like pointy things.
They risk only lives and limbs.
But when to curves their eye it swings.
That’s when your trouble truly begins.
Both my kids, a boy and a girl, end up making weapons out of their toys, legs, hands, etc. I think it is a kid thing, not just a boy thing 
I have never really wanted real weapons, working or not. But I have always loved fantastical weapons, like laser guns and lightsabres.
Having said that, if there is a replica gun sitting around, like when we get one for a film we’re making, I’ll inevitably pick it up and pretend to shoot it everywhere. It’s impossible to resist.
I’d agree. When we were kids, my younger sister was a crack shot with a squirt gun.
It was the hopeful way he suggested an axe that made me laugh. I have no idea what he thought he was going to do with it.
My kid is enamored of Nerf guns and got a fancy scoped sniper rifle for Christmas (which, indeed, I feel could shoot someone’s eye out).
Also, I found myself saying the other day, “Put that stick [leftover piece of siding trim] down - it filled your hands with splinters yesterday!” This was received with an insouciant shrug.
My kid is a girl.
I think **April R **is right on - to the extent that girls as a group don’t like weapons and explosions, it’s most likely because we discourage it in girls, not because boy children have more innate interest.
My boy liked sticks, dowels, curtain rods, wrapping paper tubes, and at 19, I still see him grabbing various things to make a sword.
Of course, he started collecting swords early on, and must have 2 dozen hanging on hooks and displays around his room. Mostly movie props like LOTR, and Lightsabers. I’m sure any cop or psychiatrist looking in his room would be shocked and think he’s some medieval-minded serial killer, but he couldn’t be more sweet and gentle if he tried. He never touches them, they just hang there. Except the Nerf swords. Those get used!
I know he has a couple of friends that do the same thing. Boys just like swords, and pretend fighting with other boys.
Always have.
Just wait till he’s old enough to play with fire.
Yeah, I wonder why you’d assume it’s a boy thing. I’ve got a girl who’s headed for 4, and she likes swords and guns. It seems to me like it’s a kid thing. I remember being wayyyy into swords and bows and arrows.
My four and a half year old niece makes weapons out of everything. Just the other day she was running around with a paper towel tube pretending it was a light saber. She was even making the right sound effects.
Her daddy is into target shooting, and my niece is already saying she wants to learn how to shoot. I’m sure it won’t be long before she starts lessons.
My friends and I refer to this as “Hello? Valley Hardware?”
Crack from a squirt gun? Now there’s a marketing idea that just seems wrong. I can see the profit potential, though.
Today I saw some kids in the street running backwards at each other, shouting “I’ve got bum disease”. I think it may be futile to try and understand how and why children think.
kid staggering around kindergarten class: “stay away from the blue squirt guns people”.
To the op, what kind of museum did you tell your kid you were taking him to?
If you want to see his head explode then go to the baseball bat museum in Louisville KY and then go across the street to the Frazier Museum. It will be a day of nothing but bats, swords, guns and axes.