In all kinds of war stories; movies, books, magazines, even on the news, you hear about how American soldiers are told NOT to shoot at women and children. In the movie, Black Hawk Down, 
there are two scenes where that rule comes into play, but with two very different outcomes. The first scene is with a young boy. He has a gun. Instead of shooting an American soldier, he accidently shoots his father. The American soldier lets him live. In the second scene, a woman runs out to a dead body, picks up a gun, and before she can shoot, an American soldier shoots her. The question here is, when is it okay to shoot at women or children?
In the scene with the child, he shoots his father and instead of the soldier killing the little boy, he just runs away. At what point in this scene do morals come into play? Is the little boy a threat or is he forced to shoot the first thing he sees? In the other scene, the woman picks up the gun and she gets killed before she can kill. She wouldn't have gotten shot at if she would have just stayed in hiding.
Children are still children. Just because they are old enough to hold a gun, doesn't necessarily mean they know exactly what it is capable of. Because if they don't know what it is capable of, they probably don't know how to use it, therefore; they can't do too much damage. But in the woman's situation, she knows what she's doing, she knows how to use a gun, and she knows what it is capable of. You can tell that the child has no intention of killing, but the woman has full intention. Is it wrong of the soldier to let the child live, but kill the women?
