I suspect the byline is, “People who can manipulate children kill people.”

Dunno, but at 8 years old, if that hypothetical had happened to me, I would have been capable of forming the requisite intent to kill.

The idea is to teach your child how to be safe around guns. Even if you never screw up and leave a gun out at home, your child may find one at a friend’s house or discarded on the street.

The basic rules for children are simple: Don’t touch—leave the area—tell an adult. However, if your child takes an interest in your guns, a lot of people think you should satisfy that curiousity, so he doesn’t try to satisfy it by himself.

A lot of gun owners extend this practice to toy guns as well. We didn’t have guns when I was growing up, but my father insisted I handle my toy guns “safely.”

Not all guns owners are that thoughtful, of course, and something obviously went very badly wrong here. Nevertheless, letting a child handle a gun (supervised) isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

I was just at the Boston Children’s Museum, which has an area for learning about tools — real drills, real saws, stuff you can hurt yourself with, aimed at around 5+ with parental supervision.

I was just looking at the Boy Scout website to see if there’s a minimum age for the rifle merit badge. When I was a youngster, scouts carried pocket knives, in school even, on days when there were meetings.

The Jr. Marksman program in Mass seems to start at 12, but implies that youths coming into it may already have some familiarity with firearms.

Kids can start horseback riding at age 7 or 8 — and there’s only so much any instructor can do if a two ton horse suddenly shies. One can easily get badly hurt or even killed, but it is rare.

Kids can start learning to ski around 6 or so, again, they’re not going to start on Black Diamond slopes, but one can get nasty fractures even on a bunny hill if one falls wrong. Again, rare, but possible.

The problem here may not have been exposing a kid to firearms and teaching the boy to shoot, but not storing the firearms and ammo securely when the kid wasn’t supervised, just like you store (or ought to store) your power tools, household chemicals, lawn mower, and other dangerous stuff safely when not in use.

I’m all for people teaching their kids about guns, but eight is far too young.

I know you don’t like guns, but the snide side note

On a side note, what’s the byline from this story? Guns don’t kill people, children kill people?

was over the top.

There’s nothing wrong with a parent teaching a kid about guns and taking a kid hunting, so long as the kid is properly supervised. There are issues in general, and under Arizona law, about not storing firearms where a child can’t get to them when not in use. CT and MA, for example, require trigger locks or other security measures.