Pistol Packin' PeeWee

Our youngest son came down early Sunday morning from Indiana, along with his fiance and her eight year old son. They stayed until Monday afternoon. They brought along a BB/pellet gun made by Remington and we took the eight year old to the range and taught him the proper handling of a gun. He did pretty well with it managing to keep a lot of the BB's in the target at 25 yards. We also let him shoot the .22 revolver and he was better with that than with the BB gun. It's a single action (have to cock it before each shot) Colt Frontier model that had been Dad's. Of course with this being the boys first experience with shooting, our son was standing right with him to intercept any dangerous act with the gun. He did really well, lowering the pistol to point toward the ground between each shot, cocking it while pointed down and keeping his finger off the trigger until it was leveled toward the target just as he'd been instructed. It's just a six shot and we let him fire 48 rounds through it. Each time we'd reload and hand him the gun, he would put on his ear protection before taking the gun and keep it pointed down as he turned toward the target. I was impressed with his attention to safety details.

I think every boy and girl should learn to properly handle and fire guns along about that age. If they can become comfortable and have fun with a weapon while young we wouldn't have so many grown people terrified at the sight of a gun. Then maybe we could get rid of at least the stupidest gun laws that are on the books.