KY - Caroline Sparks, 2, shot to death by 5yo brother, May 2013

What a horrible tragedy. I can't see what crime has been committed though?
 
Children were left alone with a loaded gun.

Maybe it is not a crime in Kentucky but it should be.
 
The CHILD got a GUN for his birthday? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. And it was left loaded?

This wasn't a tragedy, it was child endangerment. :furious:
 
The 5 year old got a 22 caliber gun for his birthday? 5 years old is not old enough to be taught gun handling and safety for a rifle. He should have been learning with a Daisy BB gun or something similiar at 5 yrs old and being well supervised with it at that. JMO
 
One of the articles I read stated the gun was a rifle designed for children. My first gun brand?

According to the article I read, the mom stated it was stored in the corner and they didn't know it had a shell in it.

Stored in the corner is what got me.

This was a preventable "accident". The article was incredibly casual about the storage of this gun in the corner. Un-believable.
 
Don't care how accepted it is, IMO a 5 year old is not responsible enough to 'own' a gun, child gun or not. Events like this continue to bear that out. The fact that there was live ammo in the gun and that it was left casually out in the open makes the parents culpable.
 
What kind of idiot buys a 5yr old a gun?! This was totally preventable and now this poor boy has to live with what happened for the rest of his life :(
 
What kind of idiot buys a 5yr old a gun?! This was totally preventable and now this poor boy has to live with what happened for the rest of his life :(



Someone with the mother's name in KY has an arrest record of some 10 or more arrests. I think it may be the same person but am not linking anything because it is not certain but something is wrong with giving a 4 year old a gun for a present, he is now 5 but gun was given a year ago.
 
When the boy is an adult, he'll probably ask "And who was the M****rF*****g IDIOT who gave me the gun?? I was only 5 years old!!"

And the relative or neighbor or whoever he was said "It was God's will."!!!! :banghead:
 
I suppose the devastated families need the comfort that the thought of God's will happening gives them but I have to admit that when someone dies in a tragic but completely preventable manner, I am sometimes a little irritated by remarks to the effect that the person is in a better place now. The little cynic in me says, oh ok that's all right then, why not shoot the rest of us too so we can all get there.

The article I posted in the OP seemed to me like it was a closed case, an accident and that's that but it might be presented to a grand jury yet:
Kentucky State Police Trooper Billy Gregory, a spokesman for Post 15 at Columbia, said police were investigating and would present their findings to Commonwealth's Attorney Jesse Stockton Jr.

Stockton, who then would decide whether to present the case to a grand jury, said in an interview Wednesday that he hadn't been briefed yet on the case and wouldn't comment on it out of respect for the parents.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/02/boy-shoots-sister-my-first-rifle/2128573/
 
One of the articles I read stated the gun was a rifle designed for children. My first gun brand?

According to the article I read, the mom stated it was stored in the corner and they didn't know it had a shell in it.

Stored in the corner is what got me.

This was a preventable "accident". The article was incredibly casual about the storage of this gun in the corner. Un-believable.

bbm

Agreed. I come from a culture in rural Georgia where it is not unusual for children to own or learn to use firearms at an early age. Personally I think 5 yrs old is a little young for a .22 rifle. Like someone said, a BB gun or maybe a pellet gun would be more appropriate. However, if you're going to give a child a gun, lock it away. DS and DD got a pellet pistol and a BB gun to use when we visit my mom out in the country (in Georgia). Because we live in an apartment, we have no good place to store them. So they're locked up in the trunk of my car - as far out of reach as we could think of.

You know who I feel worse for? Not the parents but that little boy. A careless decision by the parents left him with a lifetime of guilt and pain. :(
 
bbm

Agreed. I come from a culture in rural Georgia where it is not unusual for children to own or learn to use firearms at an early age. Personally I think 5 yrs old is a little young for a .22 rifle. Like someone said, a BB gun or maybe a pellet gun would be more appropriate. However, if you're going to give a child a gun, lock it away. DS and DD got a pellet pistol and a BB gun to use when we visit my mom out in the country (in Georgia). Because we live in an apartment, we have no good place to store them. So they're locked up in the trunk of my car - as far out of reach as we could think of.

You know who I feel worse for? Not the parents but that little boy. A careless decision by the parents left him with a lifetime of guilt and pain. :(


BBM. I couldn't agree more.
 
According to the article I read, the mom stated it was stored in the corner and they didn't know it had a shell in it.

If someone chooses to have a gun in their home, it is their job to know whether it has a shell in it. :mad:
 
In the last three days at least three young boys have shot their sisters in the US, says Daily Kos writer David Waldman, who tracks accidental shootings.

In addition the Sparks case, a five-year-old girl was shot and killed by her eight-year-old brother in western Alaska on Tuesday, while a seven-year-old boy shot his sister, nine, in the leg in Auburn, Washington on Thursday.

Kentucky state lawmaker Robert Damron, a Democrat, said: "Why single out firearms? Why not talk about all the other things that endanger children, too?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22386105

:banghead: :banghead:

Why shouldn't we talk about all those other things that endanger children AND the irresponsibility of letting children shoot other people?
 
I don't own a gun. Maybe someday, something will change my mind. But right now, I don't have any guns in the house for just such a reason as this.
 
http://q13fox.com/2013/05/01/9-year-old-auburn-girl-shot-by-7-year-old-brother/#axzz2RnZMrosW

AUBURN — A 9-year-old girl was accidentally shot in the leg by her 7-year-old brother Wednesday night in Auburn, police said.
...

Police said the gun was a .22 caliber rifle that had been in the closet of a third sibling who was not home at the time.

Read more: http://q13fox.com/2013/05/01/9-year-old-auburn-girl-shot-by-7-year-old-brother/#ixzz2SAHZwDQo


http://www.newsminer.com/news/alask...464-b1d8-11e2-8bbc-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=jqm
JUNEAU, Alaska - A 5-year-old girl was shot and killed by her 8-year-old brother in Western Alaska, Alaska State Troopers said Tuesday.
...
The boy was home by himself when his sister arrived, and the shooting happened as the boy was playing with a Ruger 10/22 rifle that he had used to go hunting the previous day, troopers said.
 
I do not own guns and would never own guns. I have children in my home and I am far too careless to even attempt such a thing. I am 100% for guns and see nothing wrong with purchasing a child even as young as 4 a starter gun and teach them how to hunt. But guns are deadly weapons. They should only be used under CLOSE ADULT SUPERVISION. Otherwise, they need to be locked away.

In my opinion, there should be a law that states that if you don't take preventable measures to lock up your weapons, anything that happens with those weapons becomes your responsibility. When a kid shoots up his school and he took the gun from home where left unlocked and fully loaded? The owner of the gun should share in the responsibility for the murders. When a child shoots and kills another child like this? Same thing.

I'll go one step further and state that any parent who is found to keep loaded guns in their house unlocked around children ought to have their children removed from their homes for neglect and dangerous living conditions. Heck, they take kids away from their parent for far less. But to me, having a loaded weapon propped up against the wall in the corner is reckless endangerment and involuntary manslaughter at the very least.
 
FYI, several news articles referred to Crickett's web site, the maker of the .22 for kids. It seems to be down now...
 

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