In many states, young kids may hunt alone

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

Just before Tyler Kales was led from a Mount Vernon, Wash., courtroom to begin serving his sentence earlier this month, he apologized to the family of his victim.

“All I want to say is how sorry I am,” the reed-thin 15-year-old said in a quavering voice to relatives of Pamela Almli, 54, who died instantly when Kales mistook her for a bear and shot her in the head Aug. 2, 2008, while hunting in the fog in western Washington's Skagit County.

Kales, convicted by a judge of second-degree manslaughter in June, received 30 days in juvenile detention at his July 10 sentencing.

The case highlighted issues about hunting on public land in Washington that were news to some state residents. First, hunting in close proximity to hikers was perfectly legal. Second, there was no requirement for trailhead signs to warn hikers like Almli that there were hunters in the area.

And while Kales was not old enough to have driven himself to the trailhead, in Washington state there is no minimum age for hunting without adult supervision as Kales, then 14, was doing that day with his 16-year-old brother.

Washington is far from alone in allowing children to hunt with firearms on public lands without adult supervision, an msnbc.com review of state hunting regulations found:

• Seven states — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont and Washington — set no minimum age for solo hunting.
• In Texas, kids can hunt alone when they are 9.
• In Alaska, Louisiana and Tennessee, the minimum age for unsupervised hunting is 10, in Missouri it’s 11, and in nine other states it’s 12.

That's a total of 21 states in which kids can hunt alone at age 12 or younger. And in 19 of them, young hunters afield by themselves may pursue any game — big or small — that is in season. Laws on hunter education and licensing vary from state to state. And federal laws prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from buying a rifle or shotgun. No one under 21 may buy a handgun.

While low minimum hunting ages in some states and a complete lack of them in others may come as a surprise to non-hunters, they are supported by many members of the hunting community who say that when kids begin hunting, alone or supervised, should be up to their parents.

“I was very surprised” by the lack of a minimum hunting age, said Washington state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a Seattle Democrat who hikes often with her husband and their golden retriever on the ubiquitous trails of the Evergreen State. A previous minimum solo hunting age of 14 in Washington was stricken by a 1994 law.

“Right now you could have a 6-year-old get a license and hunt bear,” Kohl-Welles said.

Also amazed was Kales’ defense attorney, Roy Howson, who favors a minimum age of at least 16 for solo hunting and argued that the boy should not have been charged with a crime at all. “Wasn’t this bound to happen at some point?” he asked. “If kids are allowed to hunt, sooner or later you’re likely to have something of this sort happen.”

Video   Young hunter's plea Tyler Kales pleads for forgiveness from the family of a hiker he accidentally shot to death while hunting in Washington state last year. KING-TV reports. MSNBC

Working with the Washington Trails Association, a hiker advocacy group, Kohl-Welles introduced a bill to set a minimum age of 16 for solo hunting in the state. The bill was bottled up this year by some lawmakers who wanted the age to be set at 14, but Kohl-Welles said she will push it again next year.

The lack of a minimum unsupervised hunting age is “a gaping hole,” said Jonathan Guzzo, the trails association’s advocacy director. “From our perspective, we viewed it as common sense. If we’re telling people, ‘You can’t drive a car unaccompanied until you’re 16,’ you shouldn’t be going into the woods with a gun until you’re 16.”

Guzzo stressed that his group is not opposed to hunting. “Hunters make huge contributions to public lands statewide and we think they are historical users of the landscape who serve an important purpose,” he said. “But we have more understanding of the limits of the human brain. Young people do not have the judgment that adults have. For the most part, 14-year-olds do not have the judgment that a 16-year-old has.”

On the national level, Guzzo’s comments won support from Jim Kessler, policy director and co-founder of the progressive think-tank Third Way who previously spent four years at Americans for Gun Safety. Both groups seek tighter gun laws but are not opposed to hunting.

“I find it shocking actually that there aren’t laws that prohibit unsupervised hunting by minors,” said Kessler. “For a lot of families, hunting is passing on values from fathers to sons and it’s about responsibility and there are a lot of good lessons there, but it is far too much responsibility to give to a child or a minor teen, far too much responsibility. You need an adult there.”

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