When I was little, my sister and my parents also decided not to buy my nephew toy guns. He's only three years my junior, so he was practically my brother.
I rode him mercilessly when we were kids. I called him a sissy and all that because other boys in our neighborhood had guns.
Today, however, I'm very happy that his mother and grandparents did not buy him guns. I'm also not sure if there's any correlation between toy guns and later gun violence, but I have a hunch there may be a little something there.
ST