How young men were trained to be safe with hunting rifles from age 4 to 6 years of age for hundreds of years

The basic idea for hundreds of years is that when you became 4 to 6 years of age (depending upon how a young boy demonstrated his maturity) he would be given a weapon to keep in his bedroom in his closet or to hang on his bedroom wall to hunt with. (sometimes they were just hung over the fireplace back a few years).

The basic idea was that young men had to learn to be responsible and to protect the family from any animals or people that might show up unexpected and cause harm or damage. Often there weren't any police for 10,20,30 or 50 miles or more. So, if you didn't protect your family they would be dead from wild animals or wild people (not much difference in some ways the thinking was then).

So, being given the right to protect your family was an honor and a privilege and demonstrated that people trusted you to let you do this. It was completely related to just how responsible you demonstrated yourself to be by every single action you ever did in your life.

So, if you weren't trained to use a weapon by ages 4 to 6 years age people tended not to trust you and think you might be a little addled in the head or something like that. If you were allowed to use a gun to protect the family or to hunt with then other privileges were given like tending the horses or hitching up the horse or horses to the wagon or whatever honor you were given as a young man 6 to 12 years of age. Step by step you climbed this ladder to manhood by acting responsibly at all times. But, if you even demonstrated in any way you could not be trusted all privileges could be taken away temporarily or even permanently depending upon how you acted in every single moment of your life.

So, you knew to be scared enough to act like an adult whenever you were doing adult things or else you would be terribly shamed by something you did and your life might be temporarily or permanently over as far as being trusted by your family and the community you were a part of.

Pointing a gun at a pet or even a person loaded or unloaded meant someone likely would hit you or knock you down or out. No messing around with weapons or serious adult jobs were ever tolerated even once.

Compared to then children often are treated more like pets and not humans today because it suits adults. However, when kids are treated like pets they cannot also be responsible ever. This is the main problem I see with how things are done today. People think the way things used to be done was cruel. I think that is wrong. I think the way things are done today are more cruel in keeping children from sometimes ever being responsible from ages 4 to 6 onwards.