I remember back in the 50’s it was popular to play with a plastic material called gimp. The girls would weave it into bracelets and necklaces and the boys would make tiny swords with gimp, beads and straight pins. We also made nooses. Nobody thought of them as indicating lynching’s. We were into westerns.
the boys would make tiny swords with gimp, beads and straight pins.
Making those at home, and selling them at school, was my first successful business venture. Profit went mainly to buy .22 shells. Yes, 2nd-4th grade, and I had a rifle.
Haven’t shot anyone yet, but I did once grab a short sword off the wall, and use the flat of the blade to head-bonk, then butt-beat a drunk and belligerent neighbor, who barged through my front door with an imaginary grievance, out of the house. Nice guy sober, so didn’t want to hurt him.