What qualifies you to make an assessment of this article as being worthwhile? A couple of hours in the library reading, excuse me performing secondary research? Do you have practical experience with handling firearms? I did not cite myself as an authority on weapons or the law, but I think I have as much credibility on general topic of firearms and firearm safety as anyone. I handled firearms as an adolescent. Many of us around here have. Kids and guns is no boogy-man. I could shoot before my tenth birthday. By then I could kill an animal, dress it, cook it, and eat it. Weapons in general and firearms in particular aren't exactly new things. We don't need so-called "experts" to tell us we can't have them.
The reason we are suspicious of articles like this is because they are all begging the question of firearm ownership. Whether you agree with gun control or not, the people from Handgun Control and the Violence Policy Project feel it's their duty to see legal ownership restricted. I don't like them because they purport to be experts on the subject, experts on sociatal behavior, yet don't see to care that I and the rest of society have been ticking along fine with them. People like me tell them "it's not the guns that are the problem, its people" yet they presume to know better.
So, if you want to talk guns, fine. Please make you intentions known. Why bait people into an argument? You deserve any flames you get.
In answer to your question - yes. I've handled shotguns, rifles, revolvers and pistols. My dad gave me a shotgun when I was around 12, and I fired my first pistol at 14 or 15. Incidentally, that occasion was rather much like the study on what boys do when they find a gun - one day when everyone was out, I found the pistol in a drawer I had no business being in, and I loaded it up with ammo, went outside and tested it out. As far as I know, my dad never knew I had used his pistol.
But again, I consider practical experience with handling firearms to be of only limited value (I won't say NO value, but limited value) when it comes to evaluation of some of the societal issues. For that you need actual research. And yes, I know people lie with statistics, and often do, but statistics properly done will reflect the truth.