I’m all in favor of teaching kids to use guns, but 14 is really too young to be wandering around in the woods with a gun and choosing your own targets. The older brother who was with him was also under 18.
I regularly hunted when I was 14. As a matter of fact, I was in the woods almost every day by the time I was 14 and I was always armed. I also didn’t shoot at anything I couldn’t see well enough to known what the heck I was shooting at.
However, 2 imbeciles did mistake me for a deer and put 2 shots into a tree next to me when I was 15. They had to be over 30 years old and it didn’t prevent their stupidity.
I laid on the forest floor until one of the dimbulbs said something about running up and putting another shot into him (me). I then responded by firing my shotgun and yelling to “come and get me”. That was when they realized that they were firing on a person and not a deer. And I was wearing that orange vest also.
One said “hey Charlie, its a human” and they ran off. Age alone doesn’t make one responsible with weapons.
I guess that depends on the individual.
I was out hunting whitetails at the ripe old age of nine, and bagged my first at eleven.
Firearms safety was always stressed in my family, one lapse in pointing a firearm, unloading, etc. and you were done for the day.
As we only got to go hunting deer two or three days during the season, that really cut your odds of being successful.
We didn't break the rules.
I was hunting alone at 12, but I suppose it depends on where and when. It wasn’t unusual here, 50 years ago, kids that age were expected to act like they had good sense. I went to school with kids who had to help feed their families by hunting and fishing. It wasn’t so much recreation as it was a way of life.