A toddler accidentally shot and killed his younger brother at a Payson apartment on Tuesday.
According to the Payson Police Department, the boys were playing in an apartment at 303 S. Ash Street at around noon when they discovered a gun.
The 3-year-old shot the 18-month-old in the head. The victim was rushed to Payson Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
The mother and the two children were visiting a 78-year-old friend at his apartment which is in the same complex where they live.
They had only been there 10 or 15 minutes when the boys got into another room where they found the gun.
Police said, the mother was looking for the boys and just as she walked through the door of that room the 3-year-old boy fired the gun.
A lot of pro-2nd Amendment advocates would have you believe that the majority of gun owners are uber responsible individuals with gun safety training, who treat their weapons carefully, and keep them secured when not in use.
But there is substantial evidence to prove that such is not the case.
I would say that a large percentage have a gun in their home that they really don't think about that often unless they hear a bump in the night, or decide to blow off steam at a shooting range.
The owners seem to often consider the weapons to be more of a tool then an instrument of death, and do not treat it with the kind of respect that is called for when dealing with an object that can even accidentally discharge and end a human life.
It is really this lack of responsibility, and the vast numbers of weapons in our community, that puts all of us at risk.
All it would take is stricter guidelines for the purchase and ownership of these weapons, a comprehensive registration process, and some mandatory training, to dramatically reduce the number of accidental deaths in this country.
Personally I feel badly for this mother who had every right to assume that there was not a deadly arsenal only feet away from her children.
The px of those 3 girls holding hand guns makes me want to vomit.
ReplyDeleteI looked at it and thought, Gee, Dad of three girls is hoping somehow they are going to grow penises.
DeleteThose poor little girls - having someone take their photo like that and making it public! I'd like to see the person that took it be brought forward - their name published as well as their location - and for them to be publically admonished.
DeleteIn six years, these same girls will be having Promise ceremonies with their daddies, providing they don't shoot them first.
DeleteTragic. It is the responsibility of each gun owner to have it locked away when they aren't using it. Being so reckless and leaving it around is like leaving an arsenic bottle open on the counter.
ReplyDeleteThe responsibility is first with the gun owner. But, the parent has a responsibility too. Some parents just let their kids run roughshod all over their hosts house, going into rooms, jumping on beds and some parents just ignore them. This mother should have kept those kids at home, or at least kept a constant close eye on them.
should have ... kept a constant close eye
DeleteWell, using that logic the mother should never have entered the apt. without asking if there were loaded unsecured weapons reachable by a child.
In some states in America, taking your kids anywhere exposes them concealed weapons carriers many of whom are not completely sane or responsible gun owners.
I would never let my children out of my sight when they were that age. All it takes is a second or two, and something horrible can happen. I have experienced it myself and have had to make a rush to the emergency room - my daughter managed to get her hand stuck into the bottom of a washing machine while it was spinning and luckily I was in the same room and was able to react instantaneously. She ended up with stitches in her finger as opposed to losing an arm.
DeleteHaving said that, I do feel for that poor mother who probably just left it a minute too long to check on her kids.
Fucking guns. You don't get to do it over.
Too bad there wasn't a 4-year-old Altar Boy in the house who could have dropped the 3-year-old with a crack shot. Because, as Wayne La Pierre loves to tell us: "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
ReplyDeleteHow on Earth do these A-Holes sleep at night?
A Fan From Chicago .
Darn, it wasn't one of Joe the Unlicensed Plummer kids!
ReplyDeleteYes, Not-Joe the Not-Plumber is #AssholeoftheDay, #AssholdoftheMonth, and maybe even #AssholeoftheYear, but let's not attack his kids.
DeleteThat's what the RWNJs accuse us of doing to the Wasilla Wendigo's youngest (adopted) son, which isn't true of course, but there you are. Don't give them an excuse to attack us justifiably.
Guns, guns, guns...and more guns!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/28/omaha-gun-activists-lash-out-at-anti-gunners-after-texas-roadhouse-bans-open-carry-circus/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/28/masculine-insecurity-and-entitlement-are-a-big-tangled-up-mess/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/28/santa-barbara-shooting-was-an-anti-mra-gun-grabbing-false-flag-because-of-course-why-not/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/28/louisiana-lawmakers-vote-to-exempt-themselves-from-gun-ban-in-most-public-buildings/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/28/dr-ben-carson-on-gun-rights-some-weapons-probably-not-appropriate-like-tanks/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/27/joe-the-plumber-the-real-victim-of-santa-barbara-shootings-would-be-me-losing-my-guns/
Where exactly did this happen? I know someone in need of a liver. If these parents are making their children into organ donors, that's a good thing, right?
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable.
This is snark people. I know all about the waiting list and such.
More proof that parents need to ask people they are visiting if they have guns in the house.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't that considered child endangerment?
ReplyDeleteAnother asinine situation with a gun that was not kept in a secure location! Laws need to be passed to protect the innocent throughout the country - mainly children!
ReplyDeleteThere are laws. What we need is a culture that doesn't make people afraid of each other and the government. The NRA and GOP should be hung up by their balls for promoting fear and hatred, not to mention promoting owning multiple weapons that can fell an elephant. Last I looked, the US was pretty free of rogue elephants.
DeleteThat's the problem with guns. Guns are inanimate objects of destruction that cannot correct for the idiot who bought the gun.
ReplyDeleteThe old dude? He needs to live with his guilt. But the toddler and mother, what words of comfort can we give them?
Maybe something similar to Megan's Law, gun control legislation that protects children. Guns safely stored and sold to those with proof of safely storing their guns.
For real. How many more innocents die, before we take guns out of the hands of the irresponsible, unbalanced and ammosexual crazy?
Pardon the obvious. "Guns don't kill meme" Excuse me, there seems to have been yet another week of significant loss of life to guns this week.
Great comment and this is a great idea
Delete"Maybe something similar to Megan's Law, gun control legislation that protects children. Guns safely stored and sold to those with proof of safely storing their guns"
Police officer stands his ground at his own house. Then backs down. Government agents seize all his penis extenders and arrest him!
ReplyDeleteNow for the rest of the story.
Report: Officer Arrested After Holding Gun To 5 Year Old’s Head
Warning: VERY large penis extender at the link! http://5newsonline.com/2014/05/27/authorities-investigate-shots-fired-in-sequoyah-county/
Oklahoma is one of the "Stand Your Ground" states, like Florida. What this police officer did is far worse than what Marissa Alexander did in Florida, so...shouldn't he be tried for attempted murder, and convicted and sentenced for 20 year...no, make that 60 years.
DeleteJust read that a man at a Walmart (somewhere) had a loaded hand gun that fell out of his pocket and it went off, barely missing an infant - the bullet hit a soda bottle in the cart where the baby was, ricocheted (sp) and hit the mother in the arm.
ReplyDeleteWow.
It was in Columbus, Indiana
Deletehttp://www.wbiw.com/state/archive/2014/05/woman-injured-in-columbus-walmart-shooting.php
They didn't arrest the guy. I guess saying "oopsie" is good enough if the bullet only hits a mother not the baby.
I wonder if the mom will sue the Walmart guys ass!
DeleteI'll bet the guy with the gun is one of those "pro-life" fetus worshippers, too. Hope Mom signed up for Obamacare...
DeleteThe discharge of a gun that endangers others' lives should be a criminal offense, not an "oops!".
DeleteI will never go to a Walmart. They treat their employees like crap, and the customers are like this moron...armed and stupid.
DeleteSo let me guess: The only thing that can stop a bad toddler with a gun is a good toddler with a gun (eh, Sarah? eh, Wayne?)
ReplyDeleteIn cases like this I always wonder if an adult is hiding behind the lie that a 3-year-old pulled the trigger. It isn't easy for a toddler to hold and fire a gun.
ReplyDeleteIt can be difficult to determine the truth, but sadly, someone is dead no matter what the truth is.
Hope those guns are unloaded. The girl on the right is pointing one gun right at the head of that little girl in the middle, and her finger is way too close to the trigger.
ReplyDeleteI feel badly for all involved. The mother and the 78 year old with the loaded gun. The woulda, coulda, shoulda's must be unbearable, along with the loss of the child.
ReplyDeleteWe were talking about this the other day, and I think a lot has to do with our own experiences. My dad and uncle were avid hunters. Their system was the guns were kept at out home, locked in a cabinet, and the bullets at my uncle's, locked in a cabinet. And we all still had a healthy respect for what a gun can do.
When I was 10, a neighbor's kid found a loaded gun and killed himself. I was friends with his sister, it was my first encounter with grief/death/loss. The place had yellow tape for weeks, the bloody mattress, rugs, and cuttings from the sheetrock were taken out and processed. I still tried to play with/talk with my friend, but it seemed every day the cops were around, and the funeral was unbearable. I was one of those moms who'd ask parents of my friends kids about weapons and how they were kept. And most of them would say they were wondering about asking us the same thing. Yeah, a few thought I was crazy, but understood why.
"Personally I feel badly for this mother who had every right to assume that there was not a deadly arsenal only feet away from her children. "
ReplyDeleteNo mother in the USA has the right to assume any house - other than her own - does not have a deadly arsenal. You have to be in a news cocoon to think this only happens to other mothers - other families.