Oh my God, they're arming kids, run for the hills!!!! etc...

I have a shotgun and a shotgun license, I've never shot anyone, nor have I ever felt the urge to shoot anyone and I've been shooting since I was about 14. Nor does anyone I know at the club I go to ever deliberately fired their weapon at anything other than game or in my case clay pigeons.
So it is with amusement and of course a sense of alarm that I see a couple of righteous organisation trying to shock the world in announcing that kids under 10 have been issued with shotgun licenses.

BBC.

Thirteen children under the age of 10 have been issued with shotgun certificates in the UK over the past three years.

The youngest child to be granted a licence was seven years old, figures obtained by BBC News show.

Last year, the Association of Chief Police Officers suggested that Under 10s are banned from using shotguns.

The fact that they've applied for licenses means that somewhere along the lines there are adults involved, it means they will be using the guns responsibly and will probably be trained in the safe use of said weapons. It's not like they are going to their mates and getting hold of weapons under the counter now is it?
I'm not sure why ACPO are involved in this, other than they're possibly afraid that an armed society might put them out of a job, I can't find any case of a 10 year old in an armed robbery with a shotgun, they seem to be remarkably well behaved in that sense. So it just seems that ACPO want them banned for the sake of being banned in the same way that pistols etc have been banned, it's a knee jerk reaction from righteous organisations fearful that the people they oppress might just turn around and bite them, so remove the weapons, but not the cause. Thing is, all they've done is left us with the situation where only the police/armed forces and criminals have fire arms, that and the odd few who are criminalised because they have their granddads WW2 pistol tucked away as an antique.
Still they are reviewing the laws again, so I fully expect another group of law abiding people will be victimised by the state for enjoying their sport and have their equipment banned or removed from use. It's what the state does these days when it isn't taxing us to the hilt and making our lives a misery, it removes the tools necessary to remove them by force.
Their day will come of course, though I doubt I'll use my shotgun, I'd much prefer to hang them and watch them struggle.