A man and his pistol, or whatever that is supposed to be.

 

Every mother of a boy (or man) has pictures like this.  We once had an orange plastic pistol taken away at the Frankfurt airport and promptly forgot to pick the precious, dangerous item up at the other end of the flight.  

If they can't get their hands on the real thing or replicas, they will resort to using sticks or even bananas.  As long as it does not make a hell of a noise, I can live with it.  Of course, noise is good to them, too.

At some point the neighborhood boys got very elaborate about making bows and arrows with amazing heads.  I am not sure what they did with them, but none got injured--that I know about.

It is interesting that the psalmist likens the having of many sons the having the quiver full of arrows.  I wondered sometimes at the aggressiveness of the image.  But there they are.  That's how they are made.  Power to hunt, provide, protect.