By Associated Press Published: Nov 4, 2013
BURLEY, Idaho (AP) – A 16-year-old south-central Idaho boy has died after being accidentally shot while people cleaned their guns after a hunting trip.
Cassia County Sheriff Jay Heward says Ryan J. Willes of Burley died Saturday night after being struck in the neck by a shotgun blast.
Officials say a group of boys had gone hunting Saturday afternoon and were at a house in western Cassia County cleaning their weapons when one of them discharged.
[Maybe I don’t have the stomach for it, but I’m glad I wasn’t there to see this 16 year old take a fatal shotgun blast through the neck. Deserved or not, it had to have been an ugly, traumatic (preventable*) scene. *Needless to say, all hunting accidents are preventable by following this one simple guideline: Don’t go hunting!]
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul and commented:
This is yet another accident that proves to me that firearms belong dismantled in a steelbox!
I would never wish this on anyone…we all leave someone behind.You are totaly correct,very preventable.I wonder if there was adult supervision ??
As much as I despise hunters I really do not get a kick out of imagining a bullet taking their life.
A popular lad in high school was killed hunting rabbit. He was accidently shot when his friend’s rifle went off when they were in the back of the pick-up. It was quite disturbing to me. He was one of those kind of loud mouth over active teenage boys. He was always teasing me. And I thought he was quite a pill. And one bullet took him off. And it was very stunning and disturbing and frightening. And yet parents hand their kids a rifle to go out to kill.
Death by firearms is always ugly, animal or human, no exceptions; and it is perfectly natural for anyone with a normal conscience to recoil from it. But the big picture view is that had this “lad” lived he would have gone on hunting (abusing) animals for the rest of his life unless he became one of those few (very few!) hunters who see the error of their ways and repent. Maybe he would have become one of the latter and thus been worth sparing; but statistical probability overwhelmingly indicates otherwise. Pitying sub-adult hunters who die during the course of a hunting excursion is a little like mourning Hitler Youth who died in a car accident on their way to Krystalnacht.
A bullet instantly taking their life is one thing, but a shotgun blast to the neck would be a bloody mess; not something I’d want to witness.
Well no one here would want to see the carnage. I do not want to see the carnage on animals. But a hunter…well what can I say?
I agree with Geoff and I understand your feelings Jim. I hesitate to express my sentiments because they sound so cold. In truth, I cannot feel sad for these human deaths. This person I knew would have gone on in his insensitive ways. Of course his death was repulsive. But I absolutely agree with Geoff. A teenager is not an infant. They know what they are doing when they grab a gun. I just do not want to come off on someone’s comment board as a hard hearted individual. You did scold us a bit for cheering untimely hunting deaths.
I did not pity nor mourn the death of this young man in High School. I felt revolted about his death. One moment he was a loud mouth jerk and the next moment he was an inert organic mass. I was sick to my stomach. How quickly a gun renders us down.
I am a hunter myself, but I understand where you are coming from to a certain extent, guns are harmless if you know what you are doing and when cleaning a gun first you unload the gun and put the safety on, you should always have the safety on except the moment before you take a shot, also check the area make sure nothing else in the area that you would not want to hit like a dog. And I can’t stress this enough teach your kids and keep the guns away from them unless you are going to be right there with them the entire time. This was the parent’s fault for 1 not teaching the kids properly and 2 for not being there with the kids while they were cleaning the guns.
Also when transporting a firearm it should be unloaded and should have the safety on.