Three year old shoots pregnant mommy in the stomach with her daddy's gun. Man, it does not get more American than that!

Not actual child in story. I think it's one of the Olsen kids.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

A pregnant mother of two is in critical condition after she was shot by her 3-year-old daughter, who picked up her father’s gun inside her car. 

The mother, 21-year-old Shaneque Thomas, was parked outside a Plato’s Closet thrift store in Merrillville, Indiana when she was shot from behind by her young daughter. 

Police said the father, Menzo Brazier, left the legal but loaded 9mm handgun between the console and the front passenger seat after he left the vehicle to go inside the store, reported WMAQ-TV. 

The child is then said to have climbed over from the backseat and reached to pick up the gun before accidentally firing, hitting her mother though the upper right part of her torso.

It's a good damn thing that bullet did not hit the fetus, because that is the only thing that would convince the Republicans to do something about gun violence in this country.

Men, women, and children can die by the truckloads and the Republicans could not, and do not, care one little bit.

But abortion, even bullet abortion, is one thing they simply could not handle.

Of course their solution would almost certainly involve some kind of maternity size bullet proof tummy shield, but at least they would have to weigh in.

The 2nd Amendment, causing death and mayhem for over two hundred years.

Michigan toddler finds gun in child care center, immediately exercises his 2nd Amendment rights.

Courtesy of the AP:  

Police say a toddler accidentally shot and wounded two other children at a home day care facility in suburban Detroit. 

Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad says a preliminary investigation has determined that the toddler “accessed a handgun and the weapon discharged” at around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday. 

Police said Thursday that the wounded 3 years olds are in serious but stable condition at a hospital. 

Haddad says the gun was kept in the Dearborn home. Several other children were in the home at the time of the shooting. They were taken to the police station to be reunited with their parents. 

No one has been charged. Police say investigators plan to meet with prosecutors to determine whether charges will be brought.

I guess I can kind of understand why somebody would want a gun in the house for protection. 

Kind of.

But a gun in a home that also serves as a child care center?

And to leave it accessible to the children in your care?

No, that I will NEVER understand.

Arkansas three year old shot to death in road rage incident.

Courtesy of WTHR:  

A 3-year-old child was fatally shot in a road rage incident in Little Rock, Arkansas Saturday after a gunman opened fire into the car because the boy's grandmother "wasn't moving fast enough at a stop sign," police said. 

Police were called to a shopping center at around 6:22 p.m. on a report of a child shot inside a vehicle, and the boy was taken to a hospital where he later died, Little Rock police Lt. Steve McClanahan said. 

A gunman is still being sought. It was the second time in a month that a young child was fatally shot while riding in a car, Police Chief Kenton Buckner told reporters. "This is about as frustrated as you can be," he said.

The man who did the shooting was apparently irritated that the grandmother did get out of his way fast enough so he felt compelled to use his metal penis extender to exercise his dominance.

Just a reminder that elections come and go but the reality of living in the modern day equivalent of the wild west continues as always.

The Brady campaign has a rather tongue in cheek remedy for keeping guns out of the hands of toddlers. Deport them.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

There are numerous proposals floating around Congress for reducing America’s gun violence epidemic, including: 

Shutting down online gun sales. 

Strengthening background checks. 

And banning people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms. 

But in its latest PSA, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has introduced a solution for ending gun-related deaths that you’ve probably never considered: 

Cracking down on America’s toddlers. 

“Americans are shot by toddlers at least once a week,” the one-minute video notes. We need to lock them up. Not the guns — that’s just un-American. Round them up. Deport them. Get them out of our country. And keep them away from guns.”

As much as I want to applaud the Brady Campaign's inventiveness, I have to admit that I am still a little freaked out by seeing all of those kids holding guns.

But perhaps that's what we need, a little more freaking out about this.

Then perhaps somebody will start to care enough to do something to protect our kids from the amendment supposedly designed to keep us safe.

Because it's not.

North Carolina toddler puts gun in his mouth, pulls the trigger.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

A North Carolina toddler found a handgun in his parents’ bedroom Saturday afternoon, put it in his mouth — and the gun went off, authorities say. 

The Asheboro boy is “extremely lucky,” a sheriff’s captain tells the Winston-Salem Journal, because the bullet missed his vital organs.

This is what constitutes " extremely lucky" in a toddler with gun story these days, "bullet missed his vital organs." Because so often vital organs are hit, either on the toddler himself or some other child or adult in the vicinity.

According to Newser the two year old's father was home at the time (It was his gun.) as were his mother and three of his older siblings.

Yet not one of them bothered to protect this child.

By the way if you have seen this meme pop up on your Facebook of Twitter account lately, Snopes would like you to know that it is true.

And unfortunately most of those lives taken, have been the toddler's.

Texas man shoots three year old stepson in the head for jumping on the bed.

Courtesy of Texoma's homepage: 

Initially, witnesses told investigators the boy was jumping on the bed and and caused a gun on the bed to accidentally discharge. 

Officials say subsequent interviews revealed George Coty Wayman pointed the gun at the boy and told him if he didn’t stop jumping on the bed he would shoot him, and he fired the gun and struck the boy in the back of the head. 

They say evidence in the bedroom of the trailer corroborates the witness’s account.

You know if they had stuck to their story about a gun laying on the bed, there is every possibility that this murderer would have gotten off relatively lightly.

After all this is Texas, where children die from accidental shootings almost every day it seems.

Kind of makes you wonder just how many of those were truly accidental as well.

So far this year toddlers have shot 23 people.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Last year, a Washington Post analysis found that toddlers were finding guns and shooting people at a rate of about one a week. This year, that pace has accelerated. There have been at least 23 toddler-involved shootings since Jan. 1, compared with 18 over the same period last year. 

In the vast majority of cases, the children accidentally shoot themselves. That's happened 18 times this year, and in nine of those cases the children died of their wounds. 

Toddlers have shot other people five times this year. Two of those cases were fatal: this week's incident in Milwaukee, and that of a 3-year-old Alabama boy who fatally shot his 9-year-old brother in February. 

These numbers represent only a small fraction of gun violence involving children. For instance, the pro-gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety has found at least 77 instances this year in which a child younger than 18 has accidentally shot someone. And there is a whole different universe of gun violence in which toddlers are shot, intentionally or not, by adults. 

Looking at a map of where toddlers are pulling the trigger, some states stand out sharply.

It appears that if you want to avoid being shot by a toddler that Georgia, Texas, Florida, Michigan and Missouri are certainly the states to avoid.

Though to be honest there is hardly any place in the country where you are truly safe from gun violence these days.

Thanks to the NRA and cowardly politicians there are now more guns than people in the United States. That mean there is more than enough loaded weapons to take out every man, woman, and child in the country many times over.

If that doesn't send a cold chill up your spine then I don't know what would.

Two year old girl hit in the face when the gun in her mother's purse goes off after being dropped.

Courtesy of TPM:  

A two-year-old child was struck in the face after a gun concealed inside her mother's purse accidentally fired inside a Jackson, Mississippi hospital, police said. 

The woman was standing next to a vending machine at Merit Health Center when she dropped her purse, causing the gun to fire, WJTV reported. A bullet bounced off the vending machine and grazed the child's face. 

The injury was non-life-threatening.

Apparently the incident is under police investigation because no guns are allowed in the hospital.

Actually it seems to me that hospitals should be the ONLY place where you are allowed to have a gun in your possession. That way when it goes off and shoots somebody, which seems to happen with increasing frequency, they will be right where they need to be.

Though in some cases I guess the best place to be standing would be the morgue.

Just another day in the NRA's America.

3 year old shoots mother in the back of the head. Hey, he's just exercising his 2nd Amendment rights.

Courtesy of MLive: 

A 26-year-old woman is expected to recover after her 3-year-old child accidentally discharged a gun, striking her in the head. 

Police and rescuers were called to the home about 2:40 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20. 

Few details were immediately available, but ambulance workers reported the woman was shot in the back of the head. She was conscious and talking with rescuers. 

She was transported to Spectrum Health Butterworth hospital.

I am sure that this young woman believed that a gun in the house made her family safer. 

However the purpose of guns are to take lives, not protect life.

Three year old sheriff deputy's son kills himself with gun. Because that's what guns do.

Courtesy of The Wichita Eagle: 

The 3-year-old son of a Reno County sheriff’s deputy accidentally shot and killed himself with a loaded 40-caliber Glock handgun Friday morning, according to a news release from Sheriff Randy Henderson. 

Kaden Nagel, the son of Deputy Andrew Nagel, found the gun at 8:15 a.m. in the apartment his father shares with a roommate, according to the release. 

Andrew Nagel woke up to the sound of a gunshot. 

According to The Hutchinson News the gun did not belong to the father:  

Reno County Attorney Keith Schroeder said the handgun was not Deputy Nagel’s service weapon or personal weapon. He said it belonged to a friend of Deputy Nagel who wasn’t aware it was in the apartment.

The father did not even know the gun was in the apartment, and yet this three year old found it, and ended his life with it, before anybody could do anything to stop him. 

Just another day in the NRA's America.

Arkansas parents charged with manslaughter after two year old son finds loaded handgun, shoots self in head.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

An Arkansas couple has been charged with manslaughter after their 2-year-year old son accidentally shot himself with a .45 caliber pistol and died of a wound to his head, authorities said on Tuesday. 

The parents, Phillip and Tabitha Ashley, 27 and 23 respectively, were arrested on Monday. Local media said the couple left a loaded gun unattended in the house. 

Police declined to release any details but said additional charges are possible. The two, who are being held without bond in jail, have not commented on the incident.

Manslaughter seems like the appropriate charge here.

I am glad that we are seeing people like this punished for their negligence and no longer given a pass due to the fact that "they have already suffered enough."

No, they haven't. At least not yet.

There has been a rather dramatic uptick in the number of toddler related gun deaths.

 Courtesy of the Washington Post:

This week a 2-year-old in South Carolina found a gun in the back seat of the car he was riding in and accidentally shot his grandmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat. This type of thing happens from time to time: A little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead. 

But cases like this happen a lot more frequently than you might think. After spending a few hours sifting through news reports, I've found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself.

I don't even know what to say here. 

My first thought is that I wonder what mental illness the NRA will suggest drove these babies to kill themselves or their loved one.

But then I just get so angry that I want to type a long string of expletives and leave it at that.

This is what results from being told time and time again that guns are a tool for self defense, and not a weapon designed to take lives.

This is the world that we live in today.

And that should shame us all. 

Apparently a two year old child accidentally shot and killed his own father in Alabama.

Courtesy of the the Hoover Police Department's Facebook page:  

This afternoon at 3:06 p.m., Hoover Police received a 911 call from a resident at The Cliffs at Rocky Ridge Apartments. The caller had returned home from work when she discovered an adult family member who was unresponsive. Hoover Fire Department paramedics responded and pronounced the victim, a 31 year old male, deceased on the scene. The victim appears to have suffered a gunshot wound to the head. 

Detectives and crime scene technicians have examined the scene, collected evidence and interviewed several individuals. Preliminary information provided to officers indicated that the victim’s two year old son may have accidentally shot his father. The toddler and the deceased were possibly the only two individuals who were present when the incident occurred. Other possible scenarios are being investigated but at this time there does not appear to be an intruder or any third person involved. However, this investigation is still in its very early stages and detectives are not completely ruling out other possibilities.

That was a few days ago but even on Wednesday there seemed to be no other possibilities: 

In an email Wednesday to CNN, (Police Detective Gregg) Rector said: "This is not going to be a suicide and so far there is no evidence of an intruder or any other third person involved. I can't, with certainty, rule out other possibilities at this time, but this is looking more and more like a horrible, accidental shooting by a child who found a handgun in the home."

Detective Rector also added this:  

"People find it hard to believe that a two-and-a-half-year-old is physically capable of firing a handgun,” Rector said. “Sadly, I found numerous examples. It’s not unheard of.”

Yes certainly NOT unheard of in the land of the 2nd Amendment. 

3 year old shoots himself in the head with grandparent's unsecured gun. Just another day in gun loving America.

Courtesy of KHOU:  

The grandparents were babysitting the boy and said they had put him down for a nap in the master bedroom, according to detectives. 

"When they went in to check on him, he had apparently located a .380 semiautomatic pistol that was in the bedroom and had apparently accidentally shot himself in the head," said Sgt. Ben Beall. 

The boy was taken by Life Flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital. 

Detectives said it appeared the loaded pistol had been left on the nightstand next to the bed. If true, detectives said the grandparents could face a misdemeanor charge of making a firearm accessible to a child. 

The charge can result in a fine and up to a year in jail. 

Wow a whole year in jail, or a fine.

Somehow that does not seem to be nearly punitive enough for people who carelessly left a death dealing weapon within reach of a toddler.

Of course the police had an opinion about that: 

"There's nothing that the state of Texas can do to the parent or grandparent that's going to be anything close to what they're going to do to themselves." 

Perhaps that is true, but it still does not seem to be enough to deter other gun owners from leaving their weapons within reach of small children, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of "accidental" shootings involving young children almost every day in this country.

It should not take the injury or death of a loved one to convince a gun owner to take great pains to make sure that their weapons are locked up tight and out of reach of children. After all, by then it is too late. 

Three year old child shoots not one, but both of his parents. Soon to be a NRA poster child.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Authorities say a 3-year-old boy got ahold of a handgun from his mother's purse and fired just one shot that wounded both his parents. 

Albuquerque police say the toddler apparently reached for an iPod but found the loaded weapon. 

The bullet first struck his father in the buttock and then hit the shoulder of his mother, who is eight months pregnant. 

His 2-year-old sister was present but unhurt. Local media reports say police believe Saturday's shooting was accidental.

Accidental? Are they sure?

Unless they are suggesting that a gun, even in the hands of a child, could cause physical harm or even death to several people accidentally with no intention to do so by the person holding the weapon.

But that can't be right.

After all that flies in the face of every NRA mailer I have ever seen. I mean guns in the hands of good people only hurt bad guys, right?

The police by the way are investigating as to whether any charges of negligence should be filed (They should.), and the children have, at least temporarily, been removed from the home.

Two year old accidentally shoots woman with her own gun. Sadly she was killed and therefore unable to return fire.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

A two-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a woman after he reached into her purse at a northern Idaho Walmart and her concealed gun fired, authorities said Tuesday. 

The woman was shopping with several children, and it is unclear how they are related, Kootenai County sheriff’s spokesman Stu Miller said. Authorities originally said the boy was the woman’s son. 

The woman, whose identity was not released, had a concealed weapons permit. 

Miller said the shooting was accidental and occurred in the Walmart in Hayden, Idaho, a town about 40 miles northeast of Spokane, Washington.

First off a woman who carries a concealed weapon while out with a bunch of children deserves to be shot.  I know that sounds insensitive but since one of the alternatives is that a child is shot, I stand by my statement.

Secondly have you ever noticed just how many people are shot in Wal-Mart these days?

And thirdly this is just another example of having guns on your person placing you and your loved ones in more, not less, danger.

I feel badly for this two year old child, and the other children who were there to witness this.

But once again I am finding it impossible to feel badly for this woman.

3 year old shoots and kills man, because you know guns do that.

Courtesy of KXII: 

Family and friends are mourning the death of a former Stringtown and Murray State College basketball player. 

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokespersons said the 23-year-old man was accidentally shot Friday by a 3-year-old. 

Family members were at a home on Wells Street in Stringtown, and were sighting-in a rifle, when one of the children reached over and pulled the trigger, shooting Brown in the neck.

Just a reminder that guns make perfectly harmless people incredibly dangerous.

And now this child has to live their entire live knowing that they killed a man even before they learned what death was.

"Mommy's shot."

Courtesy of KJRH:  

A Tulsa woman is dead after her toddler son accidentally shot her in the head, police say.

Christa Engles, 26, was pronounced dead at an area hospital just after 5:30 p.m. Monday after being transported from her east Tulsa home in "grave condition." 

Police say Engles was found by the children's grandmother, who arrived home to find the victim in the front room of the house with a gunshot wound to the head. 

Police say it appears she was changing the diaper of her 1-year-old daughter when she was shot by her 3-year-old son with a semiautomatic handgun.

According to the news report the young child discovered the gun under the couch, apparently there were several guns in the house, and he accidentally shot his mother to death.

Afterward the child kept repeating the phrase "Mommy's shot."

Just another tragedy brought to us by the American "gun culture."

Guns are not tools.

Guns are not accessories.

They are instruments of death, and they need to be treated as such.

Before they prove that to people the hard way.

Man plays "gun game" with three year old. Three year old loses. Permanently.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A northern Indiana man has pleaded guilty to criminal charges after killing his fiancee’s 3-year-old son while they were playing a “gun game” in their Michigan City home. 

Authorities said Zachariah Grisham, 24, frequently played a game in which he would point a real gun at the boy while child would point an imaginary gun back. 

Grisham shot the boy in the head in September 2013. He told police he forgot his gun was loaded and pulled the trigger. 

Grisham pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of child neglect. He was originally charged with both child neglect and reckless homicide. 

Authorities said the shooting wasn’t intentional.

"Wasn't intentional."  Well that's good to know.

However if you do not mean to shoot somebody intentionally then why in the fuck would you pint a gun at them?

And if you are dealing with a child, then why is there a gun present at all?

Oh I forgot, it's our second amendment right.

Two year old kills eleven year old sister with unsecured handgun. Yay, 2nd Amendment.

Courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune:  

A 2-year-old boy apparently shot and killed his 11-year-old sister while they and their siblings played with a gun inside a Philadelphia home, police said Sunday. 

Jamara Stevens was fatally shot Saturday morning with a gun that police believe was brought into the home by the mother’s boyfriend a few hours earlier. 

The mother was home with her four children in a master bedroom, Lt. John Walker said. Police say the shooting occurred when she left the room at about 10 a.m. to use the bathroom. 

The 2-year-old pointed the loaded, cocked gun in the direction of his sister and the gun discharged, according to investigators. 

The fatal bullet struck Jamara’s shoulder and then traveled to her chest. Jamara was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, but died about a half-hour later, police said. 

It appears that the boyfriend at least TRIED to place the gun out of reach of the children. However it seems he did not understand the tenacity of children in their efforts to get their hands on something new and forbidden.

Police believe the mother’s boyfriend had brought the gun to the house and stashed it on top of a refrigerator. It’s not immediately clear who brought it to the bedroom. 

Homicide detectives are investigating and will forward information to the district attorney’s office, police said. No charges have been filed.

And it is unlikely that any charges will be filed, since this appears to be the very definition of an accidental shooting. 

However it is an accident that simply could not have taken place before the arrival of the boyfriend, and his weapon.

I am sure the boyfriend believed that his gun made him and everybody around him safer, only to learn that often it has just the opposite effect.