"He is not going to use it for climbing, so it does not have to be load bearing. If you are going to climb, I agree to only carry climbing biners."

The problem is that there are now some climbing biners that are about the same size as some of the toy biners, as manufacturers produce very specialized, smaller units that weigh under an ounce. All of these have wire gates, so I wouldn't think they would do at all for a key ring. IMHO, it's just an accident waiting to happen.