This is why I disagree with the sentiment that firearms should always be locked away where children cannot get to them. It's an excuse for negligent parenting such as properly teaching children to be obedient, responsible, and above all else safe without constant adult supervision. If that boy had been unable to access that firearm, then obviously this would have likely ended in tragedy.
Children aren't stupid, merely ignorant. Even a child learns through experience to avoid danger, the trick is to teach them to preemptively avoid grave danger, which can be easily illustrated in a way that they can understand by means of a comparison. Children obviously understand physical pain and rightfully consider it to be distinctively undesirable, which is why they often learn all by themselves why to play safely even when their parents aren't looking, because all it takes is a bruise or a scratch from unsafe play to make them aware of the potential danger. So one could easily illustrate the danger of unsafe handling of firearms through use of examples such as getting a bee/wasp sting, then following up that example with further explanation that a gun shot wound would be far more painful, leave behind a very nasty wound which would require a trip to the hospital, and potentially be fatal. Kids fear pain, fear going to the doctor, and those who are old enough to understand even the basic principle of death as a sleep that one never wakes from, fear death as well, thus providing them with plenty of tangible reasons not to play with matches, electrical outlets, and firearms among other grave dangers.
That's how my parents taught myself and my siblings not to touch the loaded revolver that my father kept on the mantle above the fireplace, and it worked. None of us ever touched that revolver, despite the fact that any of us could have easily pulled up a chair, climbed up and grabbed it.
Obviously, that doesn't mean that all parents should leave firearms out in easily accessible locations where small children can get their hands on them, merely that they should be taught why not to play with firearms, and as they get to an older, more mature age around 6-10 years old, that they should be taught how to safely handle a firearm, starting with something relatively safe like a Red Ryder BB Gun, then steadily moving them up to .22LR and onward.
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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.
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