I agree completely with this. I got my first shotgun when I was a year older than the twins described in this article. You can bet the first lesson I learned was what happened to whatever you were pointing it at when you pulled the trigger, and the second lesson was to never point it at something I didn't want that to happen to. As it happens, I never killed anything except a sick woodchuck that wandered into our yard, but those lessons were incredibly valuable.

Oh, and I never asked to go outside and "play with the guns." I always asked politely if I could go outside and "shoot targets." Guns were absolutely not to be played with, but they were fun to learn to use.