I think that this is probably the case. I can't say for certain if he was mimicking swordplay or just clubs (it's not too specific at that age). But he was defi

I think that this is probably the case. I can't say for certain if he was mimicking swordplay or just clubs (it's not too specific at that age). But he was definitely mimicking some type of projectile weapon quite often...and often with absurd pretend devices that bore no possible resemblance to a gun...like animal sound boxes and such. He'd just hold them at some specific angle and make loud "bang!" sounds. Interestingly, he was home-schooled until about 9 (when his parent ultimately realized that it's actually not possible to absolutely isolate a child from the world and have them grow up healthy and well adjusted), so it's not like he was getting alot of this from other kids. In general though, I think it's too easy to simplify things to "girls go with pink and dolls" and "boys go with blue and guns". I think it's far more likely to be "boys tend to go towards kinetic play as they grow older" and "girls tend to go more towards social play as they grow older"...and I think this appears to hold true cross culturally and I don't think it has a lot to do with social expectations. At least in my family, there's a pretty concerted effort to play with the masses of kids in the same games and pretty equally.