I'm thinking of setting up a living trust, and have someone to act as secondary trustee.  My son would be the primary beneficiary and I would be the primary trusee.

My question: Should any special treatment be afforded firearms?  He will soon be old enough to receive the handgun. I am actually thinking of dealing with them separately because the 2nd trustee, while honest and pretty mature, tends to liberal ideas and her hubby is out there a little further politically, even if he is a nice guy.  I would want absolutely nothing to interfere with my son receiving the firearms.

In my state, you would not have to do anything special regarding firearms in an inter vivos trust.  They would be treated just like any other part of the corpus (providing the law is not violated regarding possession or underage distribution).  

Politically, you might want to require an NRA safety course be completed and/or a gun safe to be acquired before distribution to your son.  You could put those things right in the trust instrument itself (then again, nothing will probably satiate a liberal less destruction of the firearms).  Those things might be wise under any circumstances, but are not required.

Remember that I am licenced in VA and HI and that you need to consult an attorney in your own state for state-specific advice.

Thanks for some good ideas.  I'm using some of the better self-help books & plan to have a local attorney review it.

A friend was going to use one of those real simple booklets, but after reading up just a little, even I could see problems with those simplistic things.   Sent him about $60 in books and a long letter suggesting he do his homework and then take it into his tax guy.