In the town there lived an outlaw by the name of Texas Red
Many men had tried to take him, and that many men were dead
He was vicious and a killer, though a youth of twenty-four
And the notches on his pistol numbered one and nineteen more
Many men had tried to take him, and that many men were dead
He was vicious and a killer, though a youth of twenty-four
And the notches on his pistol numbered one and nineteen more
— Marty Robbins, "Big Iron"
The Young Gun is the Western equivalent of the Kid Samurai or Ninja Brat: a younger, less-awesome version of The Gunslinger, looking to make a name for himself. Expect him to be hot-headed and impetuous. He will probably attach himself to an older, more experienced character, looking up to him as a mentor figure, only to be told that this is no kind of life for anyone and that he should get out while he still can.
The Young Gun differs from his counterpart The Gunfighter Wannabe in that he actually has what it takes to be a gunslinger, but just needs a little training/experience/maturity in order to get up to speed. The Gunfighter Wannabe, by contrast, lacks the talent or temperament to make it as a gunslinger and his attempt to try to make a name for himself despite the warnings of his elders generally doesn't end well.
Outside the realm of Westerns, this trope all too often overlaps with Child Soldier.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Doraemon: This is, out of all people in the world, Nobita whenever the cast travel to a Western-y age/planet/dimension/whatever. Boy might be a total loser in other aspects of life, but when the plot requires that someone be shot, he does the shooting competently. Best exemplified in Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express when the gang travels to a Planet of Cowboys, and must compete in a shooting match firing a loaded six-shooter at six targets. The best record so far is five out of six - Nobita fires six times, hits one can among the targets, and shows the judge (who just disqualified Nobita) the can he shot at contains six holes and six spent bullets.
- Teana at the start of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. It took some time and a few knocks to the head for her to grow out of her hot-headed recklessness and mature to a truly effective Gunslinger.
- Yuna of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, who proved herself to be very talented at fighting with Guns Akimbo during the Mages vs Martians game and has continued to wield the guns she used then even after the Mahora Festival. However, she still has a long way to go before she reaches the likes of Mana or even the gun-using mage teacher.
- Osomatsu-kun : Promo art (and even chapters themselves) feature the Matsunos and Chibita with pistols/guns, and even a memorable scene from the 60’s anime featured Chibita pulling out a machine gun.
- Reborn! (2004):
- Subverted with the eponymous character, since he was an adult that was cursed and turned into an infant. He is the mentor, even in his infant state.
- Played straight with Lambo, the 5-year old hitman with an arsenal of weapons stored in his afro. His target Reborn does not even care enough to not be amused.
- Colt from Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs.
- Hot Shot from Transformers: Armada.
Comic Books
- Of all of Marvel's western heroes, Kid Colt was the most impulsive and immature. This did not prevent him being a Gunslinger on a par with the rest of them. It just meant he was more likely to get himself into scrapes that could have been avoided.
- In the Marvel Universe there was Jeff Packard a.k.a. Understudy, one-time sidekick to the Rawhide Kid.
- The New Old West Marvel miniseries Six Guns features a teenage Two-Gun Kid, a self-taught marksman from endless days playing a Light Gun Game at the arcade.
- Kit Willer from the Italian comic Tex Willer.
- The Kid, one of the Alamo Renegades in Marvel Comics Western Gunfighters.
Films — Animated
- Fievel daydreams about being a Young Gun at the beginning of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, complete with his hero Wylie Burp telling him to get out while he still can, and Fievel blatantly disobeying him and shooting out a gang of villainous cats.
Films — Live-Action
- Assassins is a contemporary thriller not a Western, but features psychopathic newcomer Bain challenging ex-Cold War veteran Rath for the position of number one hitman in the world. And by challenge he means kill, even when Rath is ready to retire and let Bain walk away with the title.
- In Backlash (1956), Johnny Cool is a brash young gunslinger working for Jim Bonniwell who is constantly attempting to antagonize anyone he can into a gunfight.
- Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part III. Marty impresses the gun salesman with his video game-honed marksmanship skills and is given a free gun in preparation for his duel with Mad Dog Tannen (with the catch being he'll take it back if/when Marty loses). After playing around with it (even wearing it in public), Marty makes a point of discarding the gun when confronting Mad Dog on Monday. After all, he has the improvised bulletproof vest. Afterwards he gives it to Seamus, who plans to pawn it for another hat.
- In Black Patch, Carl becomes this after Hank Danner is killed: taking Danner's gun and training himself until he becomes the fastest draw in town. The only thing he has yet to do is kill a man.
- Parodied in the backstory of the "Waco Kid" in Blazing Saddles: The Gunfighter Wannabe that finally managed to defeat him (and humiliated him by shooting him in the ass, turning him into The Alcoholic), was a six-year-old kid with a gun (in his defense, the Waco Kid Wouldn't Hurt a Child-the other (literal) kid just happened to exploit that).
- Lampshaded in Cold Mountain:
Inman: I will not shoot you, but nor am I walking down that mountain looking over my shoulder for you.
Bosie: That's what you call a conundrum. I tell you what I've got on my side.
Inman: What have you got on your side?
Bosie: The confidence of youth. - Scott in Day of Anger.
- The Elusive Avengers from the titular Russian ostern.
- Fools' Parade: The volatile Junior Kilfong is by far the youngest of the three crooks chasing the heroes and is a gunman in cowboy garb with a part-time job as a country singer.
- Chico Bonnell from Forty Guns has all of the skills needed to be a gunfighter—-having been taught be his big brother Griff—-but Griff wonders if he has the mindset needed to accompany it.
- In A Gunfight, a young gunfighter (played by Keith Carradine) challenges both Will and Abe to a fight; not caring which one he faces and hoping to take one of their places in the upcoming gunfight. After he shoots the marshal, Will throws down with him and kills him.
- Hunt Bromley in the movie The Gunfighter
- "Turkey", one of the Dancing Kid's gang in Johnny Guitar. When Vienna (Joan Crawford) tells him he's still a boy, he tries to prove he's a man by shooting at saltshakers off a table. Johnny Guitar(Sterling Hayden) rushes in and shoots the gun out of his hand.
- More of a Midwestern example (since the character is from Missouri): Tom Sawyer in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- Chico from the movie The Magnificent Seven, the Western version of Katsushiro from Seven Samurai.
- Cotton and his gang from Once Upon a Texas Train.
- Billy the Kid is portrayed this way in The Outlaws IS Coming!: literally throwing a tantrum and storming off calling for his mamma when he can't draw his gun from its holster.
- Fee "The Kid" Herrod in The Quick and the Dead
- Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) from Rio Bravo. A slight subversion in that Wayne says about him: "It's nice to see a smart kid for a change." and Stumpy agrees. "Yeah, he's not like the usual kid with a gun."
- Jake in Silverado is younger and brasher than the more seasoned gunfighters in the cast, but also the flashiest shooter.
- Bud Elder, the youngest of the Elder brothers in The Sons of Katie Elder: a hot-headed 17 year old.
- Morgan Earp as he is portrayed in movies like Tombstone and Wyatt Earp.
- The Schofield Kid in Unforgiven is introduced as this. Then the, in his own words, Kid actually shoots a man. He's really a Gunfighter Wannabe.
- Young Guns and Young Guns II have Billy the Kid as the personification of this trope.
Literature
- Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest: Myu insists on being taught marksmanship by Hajime. When he begins teaching her, she displays remarkable talent with using guns despite being four years old.
- The Kid from Blood Meridian is a 14-year-old boy who runs away from home to join a gang of filibusters along the US-Mexico border. His natural affinity for mindless violence is nothing short of appalling, and yet he looks like the good guy compared to the others in the group.
- Ironically, in The Dark Tower series, kid gunslinger Jake is not the Young Gun. That role falls to the older (twenty-something) Eddie, who otherwise fits the part to a T.
- The J.T. Edson character Waco is a hard-eyed youngster of about sixteen when he is first encountered, and already has several notches on his gunbelt, all of them nominally "fair fights" but several, as he later admits, for no good reason at all. He reforms after being pulled out from in front of a cattle stampede.
- William W Johnstone westerns frequently feature Small Name, Big Ego Glory Seeker young men with names like Pecos, the Silver Dollar Kid, and Sundance who do bit jobs for the villains and like to pick fights with veteran gunfighters. Most end up crying out I Want My Mommy! as they bleed out in the shirt, unless they are inoffensive or harmless enough for their opponent to only bother shooting them in the arm. Even the few who possess any genuine speed and good aim rarely win a fight against an older gunslinger except by means like shooting them In the Back or picking a fight with a drunk man.
- In Posse From Hell by Clair Huffaker and The Film of the Book, Jack Wiley is a self-trained local tough who becomes one of the few Posse volunteers in a town full of cowards due to wanting the adventure and glory of hunting and killing four infamous mass murderers. He becomes the first posse member to die after a Critical Hesitation Blunder although, for all his bluster, Deputy Cole still ends up honoring him as one of the most decent and reliable townspeople by comparison.
Kern: He was a brave man. I think he'd have been willing to fight all four of them himself.
Deputy Banner Cole: Yes, brave. But no killing instinct. These weren't tomato cans.
Live-Action TV
- "Whip" Morgan from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr..
- Deputy Johnny McKay is this in early seasons of Lawman. He gains maturity as the show goes on.
- John "J.D." Dunne from The Magnificent Seven series.
- The Young Riders had a young James (AKA Wild Bill) Hickok, and a young Jesse James.
Music
- Gorillaz has a song Kids With Guns, from Demon Days (Album), which is about the dangers of children and teenagers with guns in Real Life.
- In "The Stranger" by Tommy Tucker the character the song is named for announces his intent to kill the sheriff only to be challenged by a boy just turned 21. It does not end well for the stranger and the boy rides away with people wanting to know who he is before learning that his name is Doc Holiday.
Video Games
- Bungo to Alchemist: Children's authors are portrayed as appearing like children, in some cases acting like such. They're also part of the gun class.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, Zekowa has the youngest-looking face preset available in character creation, meaning that he's probably in his mid to late teens at most. He's immature and hot-blooded at times, resulting in Estinien, Erenville, and the Warrior of Light treating him like a kid. But Zekowa is the best gunslinger in all of Xak Tural and the Fastest Gun in the West, trouncing Dirty Cop Wihuwte once he manages to force him into a traditional Showdown at High Noon with enough people watching so Wihuwte can't squirm his way out of it.
- Axl of the Mega Man X series is a crack shot with his twin pistols as a former bounty hunter for Red Alert, but is also naive and immature in comparison to Living Legends X and Zero.
- Major Ocelot matches up to this in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
- Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4, is a Teen Genius detective for the police force and the only member of the Investigation Team to carry a firearm. Despite her intelligence and apparent maturity, she is deeply insecure about being looked down upon for her gender.
- The Wild West setting of Red Dead Redemption 2 meant that a number of the Van der Linde gang are this, particularly Lenny Summers. Both John Marston and Arthur Morgan start off as this, with the former committing his first murder at the age of eleven while the latter was inducted to the Van der Linde gang at fourteen.
- In Red Dead Redemption, John's son Jack, despite outward appearances, isn't even twenty when he murders Edgar Ross in revenge of his father's death.
- Going further back, the first mission of Red Dead Revolver has a young Red Harlow practicing with his newly gifted revolver, only to immediately have to utilize it when his family home is invaded by bad guys.
- Undertale Yellow has Clover: a young justice soul dressed in stereotypical cowboy attire and equipped with a revolver who jumps into the underground to rescue the missing humans.
Visual Novel
- The Wandering Dogs, Oliver, Charles and Nina in Rose Guns Days. They work for the mafia organisation Primavera and dream of becoming legends like their mentor Wayne Uedera. While they rarely actually use guns, they prove to be very talented in their own fields and succeed in several dangerous missions. It doesn't end well for Oliver.
Web Comics
- Gordito in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja subverts or parodies this trope, being very capable and badass as the Kid Sidekick to a ninja-doctor and occasionally fighting alongside said doctor's Crazy-Prepared ninja family.
Western Animation
- Boba Fett in Star Wars: The Clone Wars oh so very much. Eventually he becomes a leader of a group of older bounty hunters.
Real Life
- Billy the Kid: The infamous outlaw may have been the first well-known example of this trope. From age 17 on he committed several murders and was shot dead himself at age 21.
