"My child knows he/she isn't allowed to touch my guns." How can people be so stupid?

own parenting skills. I don't why anyone would want advice from him. They are lucky their daughter wasn't killed.

That much is obvious.

The home is clearly not a safe environment.

I don't know that it would do anyone any good to take the kids away from their parents.

The possession of firearms is the problem, and that can be easily solved.

what do they do with poisons, or knives, or power tools, or other dangerous things?

But, a surprising number of kids survive growing up in households that aren't perfect in securing every possible dangerous thing. If we took every kid out of every imperfect household, who would raise them?

I guess I agree with you in theory but I don't believe that in practice you would improve the kids' lives. And as anti-gun-nuttery as I am, there are worse things happening to kids in this country - probably by the thousands, every day - then dear old Dad forgetting to put the loaded gun away. (Well, worse given that the kid wasn't killed and will probably fully recover. It's harder to make the comparison if the kid was killed or brain-damaged). Sexual abuse, physical abuse, starvation, giving the kid drugs and/or alcohol ... when we can find good homes for all these kids, then we can start worrying about every idjit with a brain-fart about leaving his gun out. Just make sure he doesn't have a gun to leave laying around again.

Don't most felons lose their right to bear arms for life?

The horror stories I have heard from people that ended up in foster care is enough to make me not want to see any children put in those homes.

when one of your kids shoots the other.

The threshold for "miracle" seems to be set very low lately.

about some unsupervised toddler climbing to reach some impossible location to shoot a sibling without any parent watching....

Either one parent or the other mishandled the gun and it fired, OR the gun was left in an easily accessible place....I just wish some parents would start to get called out on this bullshit....

how to climb up on something and also how to get into something like a "secret compartment" in a dresser - especially if he's seen Dad open it before.

Of how to shoot one for that matter? Like how to hold it, point it, etc... My bro's kids had no idea what a gun even was when they were 3.

to fondle it, or to pose in front of the mirror with it, or whatever the hell he does with it.

f***ing gun humpers

just because it happened.

Fucking bullshit - so called responsible gun owners keep escaping any responsibility for their gun recklessness.

Boys will seek out guns even if they're in not so "secret compartments"

a presumption that when parents do (leave your child in a hot car) or don't do something (fasten seat belts, secure weapons) that results in the death of one of their children, that the parents "have been punished enough" and "will have to live for their rest of their lives knowing what they have done".

My problem with this is that is has never extended to people beyond parents. Mom/dad forgets and leaves child in a hot car? Lots of sympathy. A day care worker or babysitter does the same thing? Hang them.

Mom/dad doesn't secure their weapon? As the sheriff here says, there is no worse punishment. Kid is at another relative's home or at a sitters'? Charge the gun owner.

I have no issue with charging the adults, but I do have a problem with the assumption that parents almost always get a 'get out of jail free' card, while other adults do the same thing and are charged.

Aren't we all proud? Isn't it a comforting feeling?

It's time to start.

“Regardless of the outcome, the parents have been punished more than any criminal justice system can do to them by this happening.”





How can the crime itself be the punishment?

Or is it more plausible that the gun was fully loaded and in an accessible spot?

Its time we prosecuted gun owners for NOT securing their weapons. All of them. Even parents in this kind of scenario.

and broke my arm for the first time. No, 3 year olds don't climb

... who was also in the house! Mind blown!"

Kids will figure out anything that doesn't lock with a key and/or a combination.

Secret compartment, my flabby old ass. To a kid, that's just where Daddy keeps the best toys.

All my dad had was a pellet gun. He was smart enough to keep it locked up unless we were plinking his empties in a lake.