I happened across this story (from the wild and beautiful lands of Arkansas, no less), and just had to include it here. God, I love kids. And it's an 'only in America' kind of story, too, as hopefully the rest of the world doesn't have proud, and apparently pretty damn skilled, 5 year old 'marksmen' taking down bears more than 10 times their size.
And it gets better...the little sharpshooter is a relative of legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett, the original King of The Wild Frontier.
Quoting from KATV: (full link and even some video here)
Five Year Old Kills Bear
Dewitt - An Arkansas County boy killed a black bear Sunday weighing more than 400 pounds.
(Tre Merritt, five-year-old hunter) "I was up in the stand and I seen the bear. It came from the thicket and it was beside the road and I shot it."
Tre Merritt's grandfather was in the stand with him at the time. He says Tre did it all by himself.
(Mike Merritt, Tre’s Grandfather) "He came in about 40 to 50 yards, and when he got in the open. I whistled at him and he stopped and I said, ‘Shoot Tre.’"
And that’s just what Tre did--he fired his youth rifle.
(Mike Merritt) "I said, ‘Tre, you missed the bear.’ He said, ‘Paw-paw I squeezed the trigger and I didn’t close my eyes. I killed him."’
The bear turned out to be 445 pounds--twelve-times the size of Tre. Mike Merritt said tears rolled down his cheeks when he found out his grandson killed the enormous bear.
(Mike Merritt) "His 10th great-grandfather was Davie Crockett. And Davie supposedly killed him a bear when he was three. And Tre is five and really killed a bear. I really doubt if Davie killed one when he was three."...
And you also have to love any 5 year old kid who knows how to correctly use the word 'thicket', too. That 'seen/saw' rule will come on later in life.
Quoting Hank Williams, Jr., here: "Country folks can survive." (emphasis mine)
And how.
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