On the news that a nine year-old girl accidentally killed a shooting instructor with an Uzi submachine gun, I could only sit back in slack-jawed wonder and shake my head in literal disbelief. Seriously, who in the hell even considered that this would be a good idea? The range owner? The parents? The dead instructor? Certainly, common sense died well before the child took the weapon and it’s with that that the questions now arise once again about gun control. But even before you get to the philosophical questions about the right to bear arms in America, what are some of the common sense questions that a parent should ask before allowing their child to handle a firearm, if at all?
As a full disclosure, I am a gun owner and have had each of my three children undergo basic pistol training with a trained instructor.