The first time I met Colt, he was shooting paper plates with a bow and arrow from horseback—at a gallop.

Most days after school and helping with chores, Colt takes a BB gun and goes trail riding on his pony Blacky, taking potshots at anything that moves. Other times he’ll head out on foot to his treehouse and wait patiently for an unsuspecting squirrel to scurry by.

These afternoons often seem to yield stories like the time he ‘accidentally’ got on his pony backwards.

“Well he starts runnin’. And then he starts buckin’. I had nothing to hold on to,” Colt said. “I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to make it.’ so I swing myself off and land in the dirt and he just turns around and he’s like 'I ain’t coming back for you kid' and he just starts runnin’.”

Colt and his family live on a horse farm just outside Cuba, a small town in Missouri along Route 66.

At eight years old, his skills go far beyond hunting small game with an air rifle. His trophies include multiple deer and an elk that he’s shot on various family hunting trips. 

Hunting runs deep in the Mitchell family.

Steve Mitchell, Colt’s father, said he feels it’s important for Colt to learn respect for guns at an early age. It’s better for him to have the opportunity to learn about firearms in a safe environment, rather than on his own later in life, he said.

Mitchell said everyone he knows in the community owns a gun. He added that about half of the kids Colt’s age have a similar relationship with guns.

“If you take the time to teach a child about a gun and how to be safe with it and he does something bad with it, it’s because he’s bad. It’s not because he didn’t respect the gun.”

Fatalities related to firearms are the third leading cause of death in children between the ages of 1-17 with four percent of children in the same age group having witnessed a shooting within the last year, according to a study published in the Journal of Paediatrics.

Conducted by the CDC and the University of Texas, the study also states that rates of firearm homicide among children are higher in many Southern states and parts of the Midwest relative to other parts of the country.

Deaths of younger children were likely to occur in connection with intimate partner or family conflict that involved multiple victims while deaths of older children were skewed toward crime and violence.

The study estimated that between 2012 and 2014, 1,300 children were killed per year by gun violence across the country.

Despite having the sixth highest firearm homicide rate in 2016 and rising gun violence across the country, Missouri has relaxed its gun laws in recent years. In 2017, the state passed constitutional carry legislation that allows gun owners to carry concealed firearms without a permit or special training.

Mitchell said he blames many of the problems in America, including gun violence, on fathers who don’t invest time in their children. “I feel bad for the kids in America, for the way our family society has been broken up,” he said.

“This is what people don’t understand, it is a lot of work to raise your kid right. It takes all the time you wanted to spend on yourself, you gotta spend it on your kids.

“That’s why it’s so important to spend time, whether it’s with guns, or a bow and arrow, or a slingshot.

“If my kid’s gonna do something, it’s on me. If my kid ever shot somebody, you should throw me in jail, because I did a poor job teaching my kid to respect other people.”

Michell said he learned from his father how to parent. “It takes the love of a mother and the discipline of a father, that’s the way God intended you to raise children.”

“I do have a big heart and I love my kids to death, but there is not a tolerance for disrespect. My dad raised me right. I’m raising Colt right. Colt’s kids will turn out right, I guarantee ya.”