oldtimer4440
This is a tragedy, but the child is the loser aside from the instructor that was killed. The age is a moot point at this stage though. I was taught to shoot by my grandfather when I was six years old, and was hunting by my self at the age of eight. As with everything he taught me, he drilled into me the fact that each action you take carries responsibilities. When I hired on to a police department, my son was four years old, and fascinated with my service revolver. The department advocated unloading your service weapon, locking it and the ammo in separate secure areas. Since an unloaded handgun is a poor club, I decided to gun proof my son. I took him to the desert, got him close enough to a jackrabbit to assist him by holding on to his hands and the revolver from behind, and shot the jack. As he was standing there with eyes the size of saucers looking at the dead rabbit, he got the same lecture that my grandfather gave me, and was told that the same thing could happen to a person that was shot. Once the primer fires, there is no calling the bullet back, and he should never accept a gun from anyone except me, and never pick up one himself. He was raised around loaded handguns, and taught his sons the same lesson, and they were raised with loaded weapons. There has never been an accidental shooting, and no accidental discharges. They were however only given guns of a caliber appropriate to their age, and given only the trust they had earned.