The Boston Globe seems to think we need to ban kids from touching guns:
Incredibly, there is no minimum age to fire a gun in Massachusetts. All that is required for someone under 18 is parental consent and the presence of a licensed instructor. That is a massive loophole that has to be closed, especially when parents show such poor judgment about their children’s well-being. In this case, many more children could have been accidentally cut down.
This would end the shooting sports and hunting within a generation if it was allowed to come to pass. Some of us got into shooting as adults, but most of us did not. If you’re going to have guns in the house, your children should know to respect them. When they are old enough, actually teaching them to shoot safely is probably among the best ways to do that.
The co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, Michael Costello of Newburyport, hopes to hold hearings on the problem in November. He is wisely thinking about setting a minimum age of 15 for firing an automatic weapon, the same age a youth can obtain a license for a rifle or shotgun with a parent’s permission.
This would actually be an improvement over current Massachusetts law, which seems to ban automatics for anyone under 21. The problem is, the law they are actually looking at passing would appply to the types of semi-automatic rifles used in NRA HP competition, and CMP competition, which junior shooters often compete in. These firearms are not any more dangerous than other types of firearms that are generally considered age appropriate.