[rant]I'm all for teaching kids about shooting, but put the frickin' camera down and teach em right! This video just made me cringe watching this kids gun handling/muzzle disipline. He should be shooting something a little lighter too IMO. Maybe a .22![/rant]

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On a side note, I don't have kids. But I would like to hear from you guys. At what age do you start introducing your kids to firearms? Do you have standards for what caliber/type of weapon you let them use at a certain age?

Dad needs a good swift kick
How stupid can you get?

Too large a caliber
Dad not close enough to take control of firearm
Another small child evidently near by
etc
etc
etc

good lord he nearly looked down the barrel

A real Darwin Award winner some day if Dad does not pull is head out of his rear end.

To answer your question, I started my son around age 10 I think- it was with air (bb) guns. When he demonstrated his knowledge of safe gun handling, I took him to the pistol range with me.
I started him on a .22LR pistol, I thought the low recoil would allow him to make the transition from air gun to handgun easier. As he continued to to demonstrate saftey and competence with the .22, I gradually allowed him to work thru my other guns, from .22 to .38spl, up to the .40S&W and the .45acp.

I think it depends on the individual- some kids have it together when they're 10, while I've seen others who at age 16 I'd not allow them a straw and handful of dried peas.

I started my son on BB guns after a bad day at scout camp. At 7 years old we were at a scout camp and they a BB gun range set up. Up til that point, I had never had him shoot anything. No surprise, then, when he barely hit the paper. He didn't know how to hold a gun, didn't know how to aim, and came away on the brink of tears. I felt like a failure as a father and vowed to correct my negligence.

We set up a range in the basement, shooting from about 20 feet. Instead of boring paper targets, we shot at clay pigeons. I set up a big box with 3 flaps taped up, the open side facing us. I pressed nails into the back flap and hung the clays. That worked great. All the debris just dropped straight down in to the box, making cleanup a breeze.

I taught him how to shoot, with great emphasis on safety. His older sister eventually joined us. My son became so safety conscious that I made him the Range Officer and let him call range hot & cold when we shot together.

The next year at scout camp, he went into the BB gun part with much great confidence. That year they had them in the prone position. The instructor didn't do much more than point out the safety aspects of shooting and pointed the boys downrange. I spent the time to get my son in proper prone position and by the time he started shooting his 6 BBs, the rest of the scouts on the line were done and impatiently waiting for us to finish.

My smile and my pride were huge as we pulled the target and 5 of 6 were in the black and the 6th nearly so! The instructor said, "Obviously he's done this before".

He's almost 10 and we still shoot BB gun in the basement and I take him to the range every so often (but not enough) to shoot an old Ithaca .22 lever action that used to be his great grandpas. I haven't had him shooting a pistol yet but soon I'll have him shooting my Ruger Mark I.

The age to start kids off shooting really depends on the kid. My son was fine at 7, but my daughter was 9 before I felt comfortable letting her shoot.