Its different for everyone and their kids. You've got to be the judge. A kid by himself with a phone and a gun and some limits imposed on him, lessened bit by bit, should be ok. Add more kids, motor vehicles, etc and you can see how things can go wrong.
I routinely tell people that, looking back, we (my friends, my brother and me, all in High school at the time) did things while duck hunting that should have gotten us killed. Overloaded leaky boats, with seriously underpowered motors being at the top of the list. If my mother had any idea of the risks we took with shotguns, waders, boats, motors, pickups, etc she'd have sold the whole works for a dollar. That said, as a result, I learned well how to get myself out of a serious jam. Point being, we were trusted with "too much" all at one time. Too much could have gone wrong. Yikes. Just give kids little bits of freedom at a time, I think.
