From the ADN:
A 3-year-old boy was killed Friday morning after picking up a gun and accidentally shooting himself, according to Anchorage police.
The father told police that the child found the gun on a TV stand and shot himself around 9:15 a.m. in a home on Loretta Lane near 48th Avenue, said Anchorage police spokeswoman Anita Shell. The neighborhood is south of Tudor Road, east of Lake Otis Parkway.
Police said the child was home alone with his father, Timothy Joseph, 28, at the time.
"The child found the gun on the TV stand and shot himself".
How is that possible? How does a three year old child, in his own home, just "find" a gun laying around out in the open and use it to end his life?
When my daughter was three years old I watched her like a hawk. I made sure that she did not play in hazardous areas and watched out for sharp corners in the house, hot things she might touch, and anything else that might have harmed her in any way. The idea of having a weapon whose sole function is to end a life within reach of your child is so far out of my reality that I cannot imagine anybody being that stupid.
But I don't have to imagine it. That very thing happened in my city, right down the street from where I live.
I am a real Alaskan. I have lived in this state for all of my fifty years, since that frigid day in February that I emerged screaming my head off in the old Providence hospital delivery room in downtown Anchorage.
And in all of those years I have been surrounded by gun enthusiasts. I have been shown rifles, handguns, automatic weapons, sniper rifles and once even a grenade, by guys who were trying to impress me with their toys. Not once have I been impressed.
Do you know what impresses me? A man who protects his children.
I don't know why this guy owned this gun, and I cannot even begin to understand how he left it within reach of his child, but in my mind his actions are criminal. Essentially his decisions contributed to the death of this little boy.
This object was designed, manufactured, and purchased for one purpose. To end a human life. Perhaps the father never intended to use it for that purpose, but that is it ONLY purpose. Handguns do not transport us to work, or repair a broken pipe, or calculate our finances. Its only purpose is to take a human life, and this man purchased it knowing that was all it was capable of doing. And now it has fulfilled that purpose.
I wonder how impressed he is with his gun now?
The NRA & Sarah Palin must be so proud of this father who didn't submit to liberal peer pressure asking him to lock his guns up in a safe place. Yep, keep 'em where the kids can play with 'em. Rrrrgg. Make 'em into real men.
ReplyDeleteUnless they shoot themselves with them.
Oops.
I call bullshit on the father's story.
ReplyDeleteWhat a tragedy. And as it is nuts to think ANYONE
would leave a loaded gun on a tv stand--- the cops
should look at the father a bit harder. The least that should happen to him is that his ass needs to go to jail for not having the gun secured with a child in the house.
Handguns should be outlawed. Period.
No one ever went into the woods and shot dinner with one.
They are only to kill people. The gun laws in this country are
backward and dangerous. More innocents will die needlessly
because the NRA has a stronger lobbying effort than the oil
companies.
And I don't want to hear about NRA people being responsible weapons owners. Because of the gun lobby more idiots get guns in their hands than responsible people.
Sadly this won't be the only such "accident" this year. I do hope he is charged with child endangerment, poor bastard will have to live with his tragic reckless stupidity...
ReplyDeleteNot just a gun left lying around; a LOADED gun left lying around.
ReplyDeleteThis tragedy could have been avoided with even the most basic firearms handling common sense.
How on earth is someone so stupid to leave a loaded gun laying around in a house with a child living there, maybe one of those red-necks Sarah Suckup loves. I feel bad for the family but My God where were their brains??
ReplyDeleteWith parents this criminally careless, it's hard to figure out how the kid lived as long as 3 years.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't own a gun, I am an advocate for responsible gun ownership.
ReplyDeleteI can't even imagine what the hell this guy was thinking for leaving a gun out in the open like that. I truly hope he goes to prison for reckless endangerment.
My heart goes out to the rest of the family for their loss of this poor, sweet child.
Don't worry, Gryphen. Sarah will explain it away.
ReplyDelete:(
Well no one could possibly have predicted that...
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the any dork who leaves a gun laying around will blame the kid who picked it up. "I told him not to touch it"
"Don't doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment," said Palin, a lifelong NRA member who once had a baby shower at a local gun range in Alaska. "It's the job of all of us at the NRA and its allies to stop them in their tracks".
ReplyDeleteThis sarah palin. No wonder the guy had his gun handy, he was waiting for the liberals to come and take his gun.
palin will deny it, but she does bear responsibility for the craziness in this country.
Even without a child in your home leaving a loaded gun lying around in the open invites problems. I have lived in urban areas where you can't leave you windows unlocked at night because someone will come in your house. If a burglar finds a loaded gun just siting somewhere you will be in big trouble. To leave a loaded gun with the safety off where a small child can find it is just hard to imagine. At that age it is simple to put it where they can't reach it. When they get older guns need to be locked up because when you aren't looking they will get them out to play with or show to their friends. It is like going somewhere for the weekend and leaving your car keys with a teenager and expecting them not to drive. You better make some kind of arrangement to make sure they can't drive the car, like removing an essential part.
ReplyDeleteAnd we're already hearing "poor guy, poor family."
ReplyDeleteI don't give a rat's ass for the guy or his family. It pisses me off when I read about this. And it happens all the time, when a child dies through blatant stupidity... backing a car over them, drowning when not wearing a life vest, etc: people rush forward and say "They've been punished by the loss of their child."
I say the child was given a death penalty by being born into stupid families. There should be a new category of crime created, called "criminal stupidity" and parents whose children are injured or killed because the parents didn't take elementary precautions. In a case like this... a loaded gun kept where a toddler could get at it....it should be at the very least, mandatory life imprisonment. Although personally, I tend to like the death penalty.
There's no doubt about the circumstances. Ordinary, reasonable precautions could have prevented this.
Ivyfree
This is horrible. But who leaves a loaded gun out like it's the TV remote? My father had hunting rifles, but he always kept then unloaded and out of harm's way when my sister and I were growing up.
ReplyDeleteFIRST POST blames Palin. Nice.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to this unfortunate incident, NRA Safety answer-man, Joe Fatala, made a statement to the press.
ReplyDelete"Although this incident was regrettable, it points to the need for a three year-old to have access to protection, of this kind. With home invasions being as prevalent as they are, and the constant trafficking and subjugation of children, it is still necessary that a child be allowed the ability to protect themselves, albeit that gun safety lessons may need some fine tuning. In this particular respect we are in consultation with the "Sesame Street" people, relative to the production of a series of PSA's to specifically take on this subject".
Would you put it passed them to not come out with some sort of explanation as this?
I wouldn't.
The thing I hate as a pro-gun person, is we have child proof caps on pills, child proof lighters, the list on child proof things can go on and on. But where it really could save some children, guns, that would be an assault on our freedoms.
ReplyDeleteA halfway decent mechanical engineer could design a passive safety that would make it next to impossible for a three year old to use a firearm,that an adult would barely notice, but the NRA protests that basic protection.
You have to get a license to drive a car, you have to study the rules of the road and all the laws (state and federal) before you're allowed to operate a vehicle which might - though that wasn't the intent of the invention - take a life. This same policy should be in place for at least two other instances: having children and owning ANY guns (handgun or rifles). The fact that any idiot can have children and own guns has never made sense to me. This story - unfortunately not the only time this has happened - just drives the point home to me.
ReplyDeleteNo parent should outlive their child but illness and accidents do happen, I unfortunately have first hand experience with that. How this man - or any of the other hundreds of parents who have lost a child due to guns in their own homes - can live with himself is beyond me.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the rest of that poor child's family...
How very very sad.
ReplyDeleteThe child could just as easily shot the father.
Unfortunately that wasn't the case.
I hope this is investigated throughly, because it sounds rather suspicious.
I'm a liberal and I own many weapons. Had a fishercat come through the screened window to attack my house cat. Sure was glad I was able to get to a handgun easily to kill it. It would have killed my pets and would have bitten anyone that got close to it.
ReplyDeleteTurns out the beast was rabid. Guns do have a place in society. Too bad there isn't an intelligence test to get one, because the father in this case is a moron.
I took a gun ownership/defense class for women, taught by a sheriff and former FBI agent. Everyone who owns a gun needs classes apparently. My gun remains unloaded, unless I go on a remote backcountry hike. Why did this irresponsible father have a loaded gun laying around the house??
ReplyDeleteangela said...@ 6:57
ReplyDelete"I call bullshit on the father's story."
So do I but for other reasons. I believe that not many 3-year-olds could/would do something like this. IMO, any type of gun would probably be fairly awkward for a small kid to hold, manage, and/or shoot.
Are they sure of the circumstances here, and exactly how it all happened? Just wondering ? ? ? Why was this little boy alone at the time - even just in another room, or whatever? I would be, and always am very suspicious when hearing things like this.
May just be me -- but there are just too many 'kooks' out and about, it seems.
Whichever, that father is fully responsible for what has happened to the sweet little boy.
They can have our guns when they pry them from a cold, dead 3 year old's hands.
ReplyDeleteCommonsense conservative values FTW!
This was indeed an accident waiting to happen.
ReplyDeleteWe all get outraged - and justly so when a child gets killed or kills himself or herself with a gun.
Where is that same level of outrage when an innocent adult of any age gets killed by someone who uses a gun irresponsibly or intentionally?
An innocent store clerk, bystander or someone standing in their own yard should trigger this same kind of outrage. Yet, we have become all too conditioned by hearing it once too often to voice our outrage and demand this madness stop.
I live in the Kansas City Metro area. Just across the state line in Missouri, a small town is contemplating allowing city council members to wear guns at meetings to protect themselves.
Here in Kansas we allow conceal carry. Just think - the state that harbors Fred Phelps and his crazy family cult called the Westboro Baptist Church allows people to walk around wearing guns. So far, we've resisted the pressure to allow guns in hospitals, libraries, schools and such. But you can take them into churches, and the NRA is riling people up to allow teachers to carry guns.
Teachers don't want to wear guns (oh, there may be a few here and there) but most of them have heard about or had students injured or killed by handguns.
College students - you know, the age group that binge drinks and experiments the most with drugs - they will soon be able to carry guns on campus and into classroom and bars.
Man, these too are accidents waiting to happen.
Will anyone feel the outrage when their college-aged kid gets killed by picking up a roommate's gun to move it and having it go off?
I hope we all get outraged enough to call an end to this insanity.
If people are so scared that they have to carry a gun all the time, maybe they need to wonder why they are so scared. If it's because they are afraid a "bad guy with a gun" is out there, they need to do some heavy-duty thinking, turn off the video games and the movies and start seeing reality as it is. More people get killed by good guys who do something stupid than bad guys who are gunning for you.
I am a gun owner. I own both handguns and rifles. I use them for protection and hunting. A previous poster said handguns aren't used for hunting - actually they are. Often my husband who bow hunts also carries his pistol for bear protection. He had to use it last year when a bear attacked him. It probably saved his life.
ReplyDeleteGuns are very dangerous tools. Even after all my years handling weapons, I never have a casual attitude when I am around them. Guns NEVER belong in an area where there are children. All guns should be stored, handled, placed, in a safe manner at ALL TIMES. There really is no excuse for this behavior. I think this man will be punished enough with the realization that his own action's caused his son's death. - Hedgewytch
If I may:
ReplyDeleteHow does a three year old child, in his own home, just "find" a LOADED gun WITHOUT A TRIGGER LOCK laying around out in the open and use it to end his life?
I won't say this would never happen in California. I will say the Father would be prosecuted for it.
We had guns in our house when I was growing up. I never saw the handguns until I was in college with one exception. When I was in Junior High I saw an unloaded Colt 45 on the kitchen table a few times after supper. It was right next to my Dad who was making a patter for a holster that he was hand tooling out of leather. After he measured the gun and made the pattern I never saw the gun again until the holster was done and he was trying it on. After that I never saw the gun unless he got the holster out to show people. I never knew where he kept the gun but it was locked up. He has a big safe where he keeps his coin collection so I assume that's where he keeps it. I'm 55 now and I still don't know where he keeps it.
He did have two Centennial Rifles locked in a display rack. They were never loaded and never fired and he never touched them. He said they were collector's items and touching them would harm the surface and firing them would decrease their value.
He had an "everyday" handgun. He keeps it in case burglars break in. I'm against this but recognize he right to own it. I also understand his need to have it given his background.
In college he showed me where he keeps it. He made me hold it and showed me how to use it. He keeps it loaded but with the first chamber empty so it won't fire unless you manually load it. It is an automatic with a clip in the handle. You have to take the safety off and pull it back to load the first bullet. To my knowledge this gun was kept locked up until I was in college. He showed me this because the three of us would be home alone while he and my Mother took a trip to Europe. He wanted me to know where the gun is and how to use it in case a burglar broke in while they were gone.
None did.
None every has.
That was 30 years ago. I assume the gun is still there. I'm sure he keeps it clean and oiled and in working order.
It's possible to be a responsible gun owner.
It's also possible to be a raving idiot.
I'm sorry for this Father's loss. I grieve for the Mother who came home to this tragedy.
And I hope there is a way to prosecute this man for his complete and utter negligence and disregard for life because I don't think losing his son this way is enough.
He'll never have another child. Not with his current wife.
Stupid people can have kids and stupid people can have guns. Not the best combo.
ReplyDeleteGuns have been around a LONG time. And they are even used by men and women in Olympic sports. They are not all bad. Stupid people with guns are bad.
The problem really is stupid people doing stupid things. Unfortunately, that has been a problem in America from the very beginning.
Fighting ignorance and educating people are the best ways to lower the stupid people ratio.
In many states, parents are criminally liable for an accident that happens to a child with their gun if the adult does not follow responsible gun ownership. As a result, guns are secured safely.
ReplyDeleteAlaska parents only have to worry about killing their own children by not following responsible gun ownership.
Yeah, a three years old can accidentally kill himself with a gun.
ReplyDeleteIt is crushingly devastating to lose a child that way.
So very sorry for the loss of his child. I feel the pain he must be experiencing.
angela,
ReplyDeleteI know several people who hunt deer with handguns!!!!
one of them is my Dr, in thick brush and steep terrain it is so much easier to pack a pistol in a holster rather than a long gun in hand or a sling.
With a hand gun holstered you have your hands free and you are to encumbered by the weight of a rifle.
But gun safety is a 24/7 thing.
I'm afraid someone was not thinking of the childs ability to get into things,
Our oldest son never ceased to amaze us as to the places he would climb and the things he would get into!
In Alaska Gun Rights and the NRA get more vote for GOP than any other issue!
It is a very sad thing indeed, may the child rest in peace, I know his parents will not know peace of mind for a very long time!
I'm a Liberal, a Democrat and I'm a gun owner. And maybe smarter than your typical gun owner. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe way for firearms owners - especially those with children - to avoid these household tragedies is extremely simple: ALWAYS, always, always secure the firearm with a locking device, in a gun safe or a handgun vault (or a combination of these) and keep it unloaded.
Simple to do and it saves lives.
And it happened on the eve of the NRA meeting where Sarah Palin just gave a speech....Really, if you thought god was interfering with our petty lives, like she does, wouldn't you sort of pause and think maybe someone was sending you a message?
ReplyDeleteLooking for Tweets from busy jettin'-around-the-USA- Sarah Palin, to express her condolences to another Alaskan mother on the loss of her child...
ReplyDelete**crickets**
Too busy jettin' to AZ to pour more divisive rhetoric on the fires of SB 1070 at the request of her new BFF Jan Brewer. I wonder if Palin's doing that for free...
Nah. Brewer will find some loose change in the AZ general fund to help "defray expenses".
Gryphen... Maybe Keith O. will be reporting on the NRA convention going on now. You should email him this story as part of the rest of THAT story.
ReplyDeleteAnd technically... isn't anchorage close enough that we could say this was " one of Sarah's neighbors '....or at least he lived in her neighborhood. Just one town over. I'll bet HE voted for Sarah.... also, too.
All our guns, mostly inherited, are locked away and unloaded. My daughter is interested in a law enforcement career so we do target shooting with revolvers one was my husband's during military service.
ReplyDeleteIn my house growing up, guns were everywhere. Both of us were taught proper gun safety including loading, unloading, and proper storage (locked and unloaded). Unfortunately, later in life my father became one of those scared to death of brown people and took to having loaded guns in the house in strange places. He was told to remove them before our baby came into the house. I warned him that if I ever found a gun ANY where, even if she could not get it, he'd never see her again.
Sometimes you have to hit the assholes right between the freaking eyes to get them to understand. This asshole lost his child and deserves to loose his freedom. He might as well have shot the kid himself, I know that's exactly how I would feel if my baby had found one of my dad's guns. My dad would have lived about as long as it would have taken me to find one and shoot his ass to hell.
May God rest that baby's soul. Divine intervention works in unusual ways.....
ReplyDeleteIs it really that easy to pull a trigger?
ReplyDeleteWhat an horrific story!
Didn't Sarah Palin make the comparison between guns and cars when mocking someone's complaintin about gun-related injury and health costs. Well, you have to pass written and driving tests to drive. How about some training/testing before handing out gun licenses?
why would anyone put a loaded gun on the tv stand? I seriously can't figure it out.
ReplyDeleteand gryphen I so agree with you about the sole purpose of a gun (I've said the same thing myself plenty of times) although I don't think it's limited to taking only *human* life.
everything is energy. everything on the planet vibrates at a certain frequency. so take an object that is designed for one purpose, to kill, and ask - what kind of vibe do you think it emits? why would someone want to have that vibe in their living space? what kinds of things is that vibe going to attract? what kinds of things will it repel? when something's sole purpose is to kill, it certainly isn't going to attract sweetness and light.
I just want to point out that Sarah "Mama Grizzly Bear" Palin wants people on the terror watch list to have guns...Really, this is what our culture has come to...
ReplyDeleteThis is a tragedy that is repeated over and over. Last week, a kid took a gun to elementary school (another incident that isn't rare anymore).
ReplyDeleteWhere are the responsible parents in these scenarios? Who the hell leaves a loaded gun around for curious toddlers to discover? In fact, why did this alleged "father" even think he needed a loaded pistol in the house in plain sight? What was he expecting to happen, a home invasion in which he would supposedly defend hearth, home and kid?
Why do 3 yr old children have to pay for their parents ignorance and irresponsibility?
aka...Rocky in Texas said...
ReplyDeleteThe only way this child will not die in vain is by somehow trying to find a silver lining in this story.
The father should go to prison and he should also be a...
Poster for Birth Control because idiots like him should never have children!
Anonymous 8:07 said...
ReplyDeleteFIRST POST blames Palin. Nice.
---
No, genius, the first post did not blame Palin, it said that Palin and the NRA would be proud. Your reading comprehension is about as good as Sarah's. How many colleges did you go to?
While Scarah Paylin spoke [word salad] to the NRA, she stated that Obama and his administration were trying to take citizens guns away which was just one more of her BLATANT LIES [she never opens her mouth without spewing lies and she KNOWS she is lying.] But in this particular case, I really wish she was telling the TRUTH since too many people in this country [including Dick 'Darth Vadar' Cheney], don't know how to be responsible with any firearm. There are way too many gun owners and the purpose of these guns are to kill other people. There is no way some of these guns can even be used for 'hunting' as they are too powerful, so since that is the case, it is apparent the ONLY purpose of them is to KILL OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.
ReplyDeleteI wish we were more like the British where no one is allowed to own a gun. Our founding fathers [who were unable to foresee the future military assault weapons owned in our country] did not consider these weapons when they wrote the Constitution, for if they did, they would have made a provision stating that these weapons could not be owned by any private citizen - ONLY the military defending our nation. Guns are manufactured for one reason - to kill - either animals or people. There is no need for the type of assault weapons people own today and they should be OUTLAWED! I would never own a firearm because I don't want the responsibility - and that's what is required of ANY GUN OWNER!!!!
The NRA will suggest that, instead of putting guns where 3-year-olds can't get them, we need to train 3-year-olds in gun safety. After all, the right to bear arms should not be restricted by 3-year-olds who don't know how to handle them safely.
ReplyDeleteThe NRA does preach about gun safety, and while I do not own a gun it is important that people who choose to have weapons in their homes keep them safe.
ReplyDeleteThis person did not practice gun safety and it cost him his child.
Guns have one purpose: to kill. And, unfortunately, it happens all too often to the innocent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I married my husband I told him it was me or the guns. That was 43 years ago. We have no guns in the house. NEVER had a use for them.
Guns owners need to get another hobby.
The one scenario where I think I would like a gun is when those freakin' drug agents break into the wrong house and end up shooting family pets and causing the innocent residents to die of heart attacks. But then...what good would a single gun do me against god knows how many assault weapons? I talked about getting a gun when we moved into a first-floor apt without metal bars (yeah, I live in Los Angeles). But even if I were trained well, I'm 60 yrs old and would probably not shoot as well as whatever young creep(s) might break in with their own guns. Now I have 3 and 5 -y-old grandkid who visit and having a gun on the premises is out of the question. This dad...I wonder if he was drunk or fell asleep. Every parent can be careless, so why keep the most dangerous of items around to be careless about?
ReplyDeleteI also live in a rural area, surrounded by people who generally own several guns. I have never seen the point, past using them to hunt.
ReplyDeleteStill, even if it's not my thing, I have no problem with responsible gun ownership. But dumbasses who leave loaded guns unlocked in their houses with children should have them taken away and be charged with child endangerment at the very LEAST.
And BTW, how is that Obama can do nothing on guns EXCEPT sign a law allowing you to tote one around in a national park, and the wingnuts are still freaking out?!? Will he need to personally send each one of us an Uzi before they will be satisfied that Obama is not going after their penis extenders?
What a sad story. This father should be charged with something. I brought up children and had guns at the same time, never the two would meet. Ignorance cost a life. Let it be known.
ReplyDeleteIf someone would have killed a fetus in utero the right might care, but take a living breathing toddler out, well they don't care about that. They just want to make certain that every woman that gets knocked up takes that baby to term and births it. They certainly don't care if it has food or a roof over its head or has a loaded gun totin' daddy.
ReplyDeleteJust make sure you don't kill it before it's born. Them's the rules of the right.
Recall the slogan of the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Then, by the NRA's reasoning, this case was a suicide.
ReplyDeleteAn elderly family friend kept a handgun in case of a break-in. He brought it out when he heard a burgler in his house. The burgler left with the gun.
ReplyDeleteLeaving a LOADED, UNSECURED GUN outside in plain view and within easy reach of a three year old is criminal. I hope the judge throws the book at this clown of a father!
ReplyDeleteSome quick research shows about 3300 kids are killed each year by guns. Thats over 9 a day on average.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna venture to say this family was somehow involved with drugs - using drugs, dealing drugs..something.Has there been any mention of drugs? Why have a loaded gun around? The parent certainly wasn't thinking straight.
Poor child. I hope his end was very quick and he did not suffer.
I've come home from work to find my house robbed. It happened during the day, so my fear was what if my son had come home early from school and walked in while they were robbing the place? He is in High School. My other son goes to college in another city.
ReplyDeleteAfter it happened, I would lay awake at night, unable to go to sleep because I was trying to listen in case someone was trying to break in. My father wanted me to get a gun to protect us. He said it was my responsibility. I said, "No".
My son would sometimes come home from college in the middle of the night without telling me he was coming over. Before the robbery, I never thought anything about it. He would just be at the house when I woke up in the morning. After the robbery, the few times he did this, it gave me a bad scare. I would be drifting off to sleep, hear a noise, and jump up while grabbing a baseball bat that I kept by the bed. I could have killed him a couple of times. I don't think he even realizes how close he came to being seriously injured or killed.
And that is with a baseball bat. If I had a gun then...I can't even think about it.
I also personally know two children who were killed with guns that were 'put away' in drawers. The drawers had no locks on them. The guns were loaded and the safety was off.
My dad taught me to handle and fire guns. He had killed many people with guns (it's what they did in WWII) and he was a good, stern teacher. If this "parent" had such a teacher, the 3 yr old would be alive today.
ReplyDeleteMy dad also taught me you can't fix stupid. Children are at the mercy of abusive, indifferent, neglectful parents. That is a much bigger problem than guns.
Some twisted logic is going on in the heads of those who believe in unfettered gun rights regardless of mental stability or whether someone is on a terrorist list, but who are against health care reform. I have read statistics about states with a high rate of gun ownership and a low rate of crime or gun-related fatalities in general. That tells me that the gun owners exercise responsibility and common sense measures to prevent avoidable
ReplyDeletetragedies like the death of this poor little boy.
His father is a moron who should be charged with criminally negligent homicide. Anyone who has children know that they are naturally curious without knowledge of how dangerous some things are. As a result, we make sure they don't ingest poisonous substances, cross streets without an adult or responsible older child, get hold of matches, etc. For that very reason, the gun should have been secured. Even though I know this man will be punished by having to live with the results of his carelessness until he dies, he needs to suffer some legal consequences. It's too bad that there isn't a law against first-degree stupidity, especially when it results in injury or death.
Same thing happened in Detroit not 3 months ago. The story goes that the kid confused the real gun with the toy gun that is used with their video games and killed himself. Just a toddler, too.
ReplyDeleteThe adult in the house, I believe, didn't do a minute of time.
"It's the bad guys, not the piece of metal, that's to blame." Yep, the bad guys killed this poor little boy.
ReplyDeleteAmerican children have a right to bear their arms and American fathers have a right to let them bear their arms and blow their brains out too. 15 years from now this could mean a life saved in a foreign country!
ReplyDeleteIf you leave a gun on a table and someone picks it up and shoots themselves with it, it's not the guns fault. It's the table's fault. Guns don't kill, tables do.
ReplyDelete