I honestly don't care when a person first picks up and uses a gun. It is not a concern of mine.

If violence happens, however, we should place the blame directly on the parents of these minors instead of declaring a completely arbitrary age when a person will become magically capable of properly using a gun.

The current policy is, sadly, to blame everyone and everything aside from the parents for these crimes. It's the fault of guns, video games, fictional mental illnesses (like ADHD), television, angry music, bullying, violent movies, and the list goes on.

Look no further than the recent tragedy in Boston. The more the mother of these bombers talks, the more it is becoming apparent that this whole incident was highly encouraged if not planned by her.

The story of the kid killing his mother in the op is certainly awful, but I highly doubt that the only problems in this young kid's life was his lack of Call of Duty or his access to firearms. If games and guns automatically resulted in these types of situations then we would be having 10-20 stories like this a day if not much more.

Yes and herein lies the problem, these irresponsible parents caused the death  of their 2 year old daughter, that child couldn't choose for her parents to be responsible or not.

With proper gun laws in place this wouldn't  have happened.

At that age they don't really think about the likely consequences of their actions. 

Just like not drving until 16 and drinking until 21 (Although this should be 18) 

I Would say Air Rifles and Shotguns can be used by kids over 14, provided the licenses and checks are more stringent.

As a side note no-one should ever be able to buy a handgun or a machine gun, thats just fucking ridiculous. 

agreed, same in the UK I can gaurantee 95% of British soldiers had never held a gun before going into the army, and they have some of the best trained soldiers out there

Yes, lets ban everything for "Safety".

As for your handgun comment - hilarious. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to defend themselves? Furthermore, look at the usage of machine guns in crimes in the US - it never happens, even though such guns are legal as class-3 firearms.

Clearly you didn't read what I said, did I say firearms should be banned? No, clearly not. Air rifles and shotguns have a clear purpose, hunting or clay pidgeon/competitive shooting. What possible reason could someone have for owning a handgun? Defence? Why don't i just have a katana sword underneath my bed for when intruders come in. BOLDED So if i have a handgun to protect myself what do you suggest a robber is going to have with them to protect theirself? Hmmm...... 

Age isn't the issue. Parenting is. As long as a kid knows that killing is wrong, he can start shooting at 5 if he is capable of it...

Guns are bad enough, in my estimation, on their own.

The very notion of a gun made exclusively for children.........is appalling, and anyone trying to justify or defend such a thing needs to be punched in the face....with a brick.

 @ some of the responses in here. Kids should not even be near, allowed, or able to touch a gun. I don't care if it's for "self defense" purposes, learn how to use a knife, darts or even a homemade weapon (like a sling shot) that can't literally kill someone from a distance by ACCIDENT. Leave the guns to the military unless you live in a country where war is literally your alarm clock, then you need to know how to use a gun just in case. Otherwise, it's unncessary and just leads to unncessary violence and death over nothing.

The Sandy shootings and many other shootings have shown that 12 years old is to young to develop a Gun Hobby.

A lot of these school shootings are done by young White males who had been playing with real guns in real life since they where no older then 12 years old. And they don't play any video games until they move out of their parents home at age 18 or so, and once they do start playing their first video games, they only want to play real like guns shooting games, which is the only reason why they ever started playing any video games at all.

^lol at the three posts above. You guys would be horrified to find out that about 50% of the kids in my hometown start using guns as preteens (or before) for hunting and target shooting. Furthermore, the local branches of boy-scouts have rifle shooting as one of their badges. The irrational hysteria in regards to guns is quite fascinating to me though.