Teen Cole Peyton shot in the back after playing ‘Ding Dong Ditch’

When 14-year-old Cole Peyton and his two buddies decided to play a game of Ding Dong Ditch, they thought the worst they’d get was a couple of angry hand-wringings as they ran down the street.

Instead, Cole Peyton wound up fighting for his life.

The game involves ringing the doorbell of a stranger’s house and running away. Not a particularly mature game, but for a bunch young teens in a quite Oklahoma town, it was something to do in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

So it was in the spirit of having some harmless fun that they knocked on the door of one homeowner who answered with a gun and proceeded to fire at the young boys.

Peyton was shot once in the back and arm as he and his friends ran away.

It’s just the latest senseless shooting in a gun-loving country that increasingly shoots first and asks questions later.

As police investigated the shooting they found the homeowner was under the belief that the boys were trying to rob the house by ringing the doorbell, reported the Inquisitir.

The identity of the shooter has not been made public and no arrests have been made.

Oklahoma Stand Your Ground law states that a person who holds “a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm” is permitted to use “defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another.”

Despite one bullet piercing his liver and exiting his body, the teenager remains recovering in hospital and will survive the bloody incident.