The way I see it, the story of the kid getting a gun, learning to use it and then ending up on the run can be interpreted as an analogy for a person who wants to learn the guitar and make it big in a band and then finds out that it's not the extravagant 24-hour party lifestyle that he expected, and ends up running from the all the attention. And that, for me, is what's really clever about this song.
The way I see it, the story of the kid getting a gun, learning to use it and then ending up on the run can be interpreted as an analogy for a person who wants to learn the guitar and make it big in a band and then finds out that it's not the extravagant 24-hour party lifestyle that he expected, and ends up running from the all the attention. And that, for me, is what's really clever about this song.