I know, it's a different world. I'm 62. As a kid, my friends and I chased one another around the neighborhood with toy guns for hours, raising a racket. My kids are 24 and 26 now, but it would have been unthinkable to let them have toy guns.
Clearly toy guns. Gun-like, but nobody with the slightest understanding of guns would think they were real. I have no problem with kids having toy guns. I do have a problem with kids in public having realistic replica guns. Bright orange isn't enough.
I think the answer is that other than in organized events realistic replicas should be subject to the same restrictions on actions that real guns are.
I'm in my 50s and did the same. But even then the toy guns were often bright orange.
Nerf guns are the modern equivalent of our dart guns and kids run around with them today all the time. They are pretty unmistakeable, I'm sure by design.