Brad Pitt was given a shotgun at the age of five

Brad Pitt was given a shotgun as a young child.

The 50-year-old actor has confessed he was gifted the dangerous weapon by his relatives when he was in kindergarten, which kids start aged four or five in the US, as part of a "rite of passage" members of his family went through as youngsters.

"There's a rite of passage where I grew up of inheriting your ancestors' weapons,” he said.

"My brother got my dad's, I got my grandfather's when I was in kindergarten."

Despite inheriting the shotgun at such an early age, the 'Ocean's Eleven' star insists he never took owning the firearm lightly as his father taught him to have a "profound respect" for the weapon.

"The positive is that my father instilled in me a profound and deep respect for the weapon," he told Radio Times magazine.

The Golden Globe-winner - who has six children, Maddox, 13, Pax, 10, Zahara, nine, Shiloh, eight, and six-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne with his wife Angelina Jolie - is proud of his family's tradition and believes everyone has a right to own their own firearm as he "feels better" knowing he has it in his home.

"I feel better having a gun," he said.