What age for first time shooting a gun?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I was 4 when my dad let me shoot his Remington 550-1 off the hood of his 1969 Mercury Montego. I took to it like a fish to water. It’s been my crack ever since!
 
I was five or six when I shot a .22 for the first time and killed a squirrel. My father didn't believe in a lot of training.

My kids were nine or ten when they started.
 
I was 20. Hadn’t even touched a gun before then. I didn’t really grow up in a family where guns were present in my house. Grandpa had some but wasn’t really into them anymore. My cousin got a pistol about 8 years ago and we all went to the range he joined to give it a test run. I was hooked after one shot.
 
My son (pictured fishing in my avatar) started shooting his .22lr at 4 years old. He has always been mature for his age (could fish independently at 2, and pay attention the whole time!) He showed significant interest, and has always enjoyed it. He begs to go, takes it very seriously, and always acts very mature for his age when we are shooting. I keep the shooting sessions short, so that he does not get tired.

He is 5 now. He shoots a Savage Rascal and he can easily load, unload, operate the bolt and safety, and see through the peep sights (HIGHLY recommend this as a first rimfire). He regularly hits a 6" steel target 9 out of 10 times at 25 yards. We only shoot subsonics, and he loves hearing that ping of the lead hitting steel. He likes to watch me shoot my centerfires.

All that said, I would not trust any of his 4-8 year old cousins with this. They don't have the temperament and also don't seem interested. His 3 year old sister hasn't shown the interest he did at that age. She does enjoy fishing though. My son has always enjoyed observing and learning the things I do, and I that has taught him a lot about responsibility around dangerous tools, guns, etc. He spent a couple hours on a drill press this weekend happy as a clam. I think it has been very good for him.

So... I wouldn't worry about age. If he/she is interested, will listen to your safety speech and take it seriously, then go for it. I ask my son to repeat the two rules before our range sessions (we will get to the 4 eventually). We talk about trigger discipline and where not to point the gun. He likes being treated like a grown up, and is proud of what he can do and what he is trusted with.
 
I'm in the "maturity" rather than calendar age camp. I personally was 5 in 1972 when my Dad let me go with him to the shooting range and actually started letting me handle and fire(with guidance) a new S&W "Kit" gun. I shot with that for a couple of years and then at 7 he gave me my first rifle which I was responsible for. It's a 1964 Marlin 39A "Golden". I still have both, still shoot both and taught my own son to shoot on both. My grandson who's 3, will be taught on them as well when I determine he's ready. I think he'll be in the 5/6 year old range which is about right IMO to allow children to start actually doing more than pretend.
 
when my daughter was 5, i got her a cricket. put a sling on it and she worked on handling it (african carry, etc lol) and memorizing the 4 rules for quite a while. maturity, as stated many times above, is the big deal. so is interest. in her case, it wasn't so much interest in guns, but wanting to do what daddy was doing. so we turned it into something we could do together. the shooting didn't start until she was very comfortable with gun handling.

iirc, at 8, i built her a volquartsen 10/22. at 10, a pink/purple AR15 (never fired). at 12, a suppressed walther p22. at 13, she shot her first center-fire and a week later, a master-class score in her first f-class match. at 16, a nice AR15. at 18, a sig p226 tac ops.
 
Hi...
I let my son start shooting a real firearm(.22LR) revolver when he was 8.
He had airsoft guns for about a year before that and had demonstrated safe and responsible gun handling.
He was shooting .38Spl loads within a few weeks and mid level .357Mag loads a few weeks later.
He tells me that he remembers shooting .44Mag revolvers that same summer.
He will be 25 in a couple of weeks and has a full blown gun addiction(he probably owns 15 or more guns of his own) and has in the last couple or three weeks learned to reload.

He has gone hunting every year since he was 12 years old and has had a carry permit since he turned 21.
He bought his first house a little over two years ago, belongs to two gun clubs and has never caused me any trouble.
 
I was 7 when I shot my first firearm. I was fascinated by guns, still am. ;)
My Dad and his buddies took me along to sight in their deer rifles. Needless to say the guns were too big for me but I needed to show them I was a manly young man so I shot a 30.06 and pretended it didn’t hurt like crazy. I got to shoot a 30-30 lever action. I really liked that. Might explain my love of them now.
After shooting the “men’s” guns I got to shoot a more appropriate gun for my size and age, a Marlin 60 .22lr rifle. That was fun!
 
When I was 5 or 6, my Dad had me shooting an old pump-action .22, a "gallery gun" from a shooting gallery. It was a smoothbore and as accurate as spitwads. :barf:
When I was 7 1/2, we went out to an old bridge on a country road outside of town and he tried to teach me how to shoot his National Guard M-1 Garand. I could barely hold the rifle up and when I shot it, I almost dropped it as I hadn't expected that much recoil. I didn't shoot much for 8 years (Jr. in H. S.) and then skipped a few more years while I was in college. Did a little shooting with a .22 levergun during the last 3 years of college but only once or twice a year (time, location, & money).
I learned though.
Since then, I have shot .22 handguns and rifles, a .357 handgun & rifle, a 12 ga. SxS (both barrels!), a .243, and an AK. And, depending on the gun, with some decent accuracy.

SteadyD - as has been stated here, it is about the child's maturity and physical capacity, not age. Have you considered a single action .22 revolver and keeping the targets close (25-50 ft.)? The child might be better able to hold the handgun without help. They can rest their hands on sandbags to shoot, increasing their chances of hitting the target and building their confidence.
Good luck.
 
My dad gave me a Remington 514 single shot for my 7th birthday in 1961. I’ve been an avid shooter ever since. I gave my son his first when he was 8, a .22LR Contender Carbine followed by a Ruger 10/22 and a Beretta 950BS .22Short and an FIE Little Ranger single action .22LR, all before he was 10. He is 39 now and has an impressive assortment of firearms that he has acquired (mostly) on his own.
 
I was in 1st grade when I shot a .22 rifle.
Got my own the next yr.
My kids all shot when they were little, 5 yrs old about the starting age.
All grown up now, none stuck with it.
 
Got my first handgun in 5th grade.
I came from a very strict house.
One where there was the concept of an absolute.

Today's culture doesn't enforce that type of thinking, in fact demands everything of old school/conservative nature be challenged.

Gun safety in Jr high has been replaced with telling kids they are the wrong gender in Kindergarten.
 
I was six the first time I shot a gun. 20 gauge. By the time I was 8 I had my own 22 single action bolt and I was walking the fields hunting pheasant with my own .410 shotgun. Stilll have the 22 LR. Don't know where the .410 is. But I did get a pheasant with it that first year of hunting. We lived on a farm out in the country just seemed natural to have guns.
 
I first carried a shotgun at 6 years old, a .410. My first gun was a similar .410, for Christmas when I was 7. Was like Barney, got to put a shell in my pocket, and load when permission was granted. Both of my sons shot their first muzzleloader at about 5 years of age, a .40 cal Dixie Cub.
 
I was 13 when I first shot a .22. Dad wasn’t really into guns, his just sat in the back of the closet unused for my entire childhood and it took a lot of persuading to get him to let me clean them and shoot them. I was 14 before I got a pump air gun and was 15 or 16 when I could start using dad’s Marlin 39a unsupervised, and I didn’t get my own gun (Rem 870) until I was 17 and Mom was pretty unhappy about it. My parents are very pro 2nd amendment, but they thought I was a devil child and would shoot my younger siblings if I had a gun. Through my early teens I probably shot the most with my neighbor. I did a lot of farm work for him starting at 14 like fencing and baling hay, and after the work was done and he was grilling something to eat he'd show me his new firearms and we'd shoot them. He's probably largely responsible for getting me into hunting and firearms.

I let my daughter start shooting a .22 at 5. It was super controlled, she basically sat on my lap while I held the gun to her shoulder and aimed for her and I let her pull the trigger; she wasn’t strong enough to hold any of my guns then anyway. By the time she was 7 she was shooting my Mark I by herself with me standing nearby. At 9 I trusted her enough that I didn’t need to stand right next to her and could go load magazines while she shot. I got her a M&P 15-22 this year for her 10th birthday, but it stays locked in the safe and she only shoots it when I’m there to supervise.

I like to show off these pictures, the first is my daughter at 5 or 6. The second is her at 7. It's a screenshot from a video of her going 9/9 at 7 yards busting beer cans!

IMG_2107.JPG

IMG_4076.PNG
 
I was 21, with exceptions for air guns, and my wife was 5. We come from two very different backgrounds. Her grandfather was a West Point Colonel and her mother a champion rifle shooter. My father was living in Haight-Ashbury in 1969. He intensely disliked guns, violence, and anything associated. We are recently married with our first child, now 8 months old, and I just sort of assumed that 10 years sounded like a reasonable age until my wife guffawed, telling me that she was far younger. Of course we are going to gauge our son independently so my only real insistence for safety was to start with long arms first and move to pistols later. I look forward to it. Thankfully we have inherited a single shot break action .410 shotgun that should be ideal for a child when the time comes. If he's lucky, he'll inherit his mothers talent behind a trigger as well.
 
I was 21, with exceptions for air guns, and my wife was 5. We come from two very different backgrounds. Her grandfather was a West Point Colonel and her mother a champion rifle shooter. My father was living in Haight-Ashbury in 1969. He intensely disliked guns, violence, and anything associated. We are recently married with our first child, now 8 months old, and I just sort of assumed that 10 years sounded like a reasonable age until my wife guffawed, telling me that she was far younger. Of course we are going to gauge our son independently so my only real insistence for safety was to start with long arms first and move to pistols later. I look forward to it. Thankfully we have inherited a single shot break action .410 shotgun that should be ideal for a child when the time comes. If he's lucky, he'll inherit his mothers talent behind a trigger as well.

Be careful if you plan on starting your son with the .410. I have an older .410 single shot as well and let my daughter shoot it last summer when she was 9 and she refuses to shoot it again. She says it kicks even though I had light 2.5" loads in it. She has no problems with .22's, and even has shot my Marlin 1894c with light .38's in it and likes it.
 
have 5 children. 4 boys and on girl. I stared each when they were 5 or 6 depending on mental maturity. But I started training them at 3 or 4 by letting them help me clean them then letting them handle them PROPERLY.

They were trained using a Colt (1954) Woodsman Target .22. Which is still in service.
 
SteadyD asked:
What age for first time shooting a gun?

The chronological age is irrelevant.

The question turns on the maturity of the child.

Does he/she understand what they are doing? Do they understand the concept of mortality? Do they understand this is not a re-enactment of a cartoon? Until the child is mature enough to understand the potential finality of the act of pulling the trigger they don't need to be shooting.

And DON'T assume that because you appreciate these concepts that your children will, too. Your children have likely been raised with substantial exposure to media programs based on religious concepts that do not recognize an absolute state of death.
 
My 14 year old daughter just shot a gun for the first time today. She doesn't like loud noises and is intimidated by guns but her best friend talked her into it (I have never pressured her). She actually enjoyed the 10/22. But the Browning 1911 380 was a bit much for her. Her friend wanted to shoot bigger... but the sun was going down fast.

I don't think pushing a child into shooting is a good idea. But if they show interest I think it is ok to properly introduce them to firearms.

I was about 5 or 6 when I took my first shot with a 22 at a can at a neighbors farm. I was a teen before my father picked up an old 22 at a garage sale and took my out and really taught me how to shoot.
 
The chronological age is irrelevant.

The question turns on the maturity of the child.

It sure does. And how much interest they have in guns.

Not long ago, I handed over a gun to my wife for her to have a look at (new arrival) (the gun, not the wife).

My son, two and a half, with a concerned look on his face: "Mommy, you have to remove the magazine and check for bullets first".

He’ll grow up OK...
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top