Priest: Slain dad had taught boy, 8, to use guns

Source: Yahoo News

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. – A man who police believe was shot and killed by his 8-year-old son had consulted a Roman Catholic priest about whether the boy should handle guns and had taught him how to use a rifle, the clergyman said Saturday.

The father, Vincent Romero, 29, was from a family of avid hunters and wanted to make sure the boy wasn't afraid of guns, said the Very Rev. John Paul Sauter of St. Johns Catholic Church. The boy's stepmother had suggested he have a BB gun, the priest said.

Romero taught his son how to use a rifle to kill prairie dogs, Sauter said. Police say the boy used a 22.-caliber rifle Wednesday to kill his father and another man, Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos.

~snip
The boy, who faces two counts of premeditated murder, did not act on the spur of the moment, St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick said. Police are looking into whether he might have been abused.

"I'm not accusing anybody of anything at this point," he said Saturday. "But we're certainly going to look at the abuse part of this. He's 8 years old. He just doesn't decide one day that he's going to shoot his father and shoot his father's friend for no reason. Something led up to this."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081109/ap_on_re_us/child_charged

else was very wrong in this case. I wonder if we'll ever know what it is?

My dad taught me, starting very carefully and slowly when I was a preschooler, and look what happened to me.

At that very young age, he was taught that you never touch them unless dad or mom is there. When he got a bit older, his dad took him out to the farm and showed him how much damage a gun can do by shooting a sapling tree. As the years went by, he was not only taught how to shoot, clean & care for guns, but to respect them as a dangerous weapon.

I still don't think the problem in this case was because the boy was taught about guns.

My immediate reaction also is to look for abuse. I would be very surprised not to find it.

I think that having a gun in the house safely is a great tool for teaching gun safety. If they're not going to learn it from you, who are they going to learn it from? Suddenly, your kid (who is VERY curious about guns since the parents are anti-gun) finds one while at a friend's house and that's how shit happens.

Whether or not you believe hunting and/or guns in general are a good or bad thing, gun safety and training should be a part of every child's life. Of course, I think that guns should be treated like cars. You need a license to operate one. To get that license, you have to pass an intensive training course. If you're going to shoot a larger, more powerful weapon then you should have to take a class for that one too, just as motorcyclists have to.

If the kid shot his parents with a gun, either the training was horribly insufficient or there was some underlying trigger, like abuse or mental disease.

a third grader, well I guess when "someone" is pro-gun then talking sense really doesn't make sense. Maybe we should teach third graders the difference between right and wrong....?

re-married to a guy that has taught them the rules and respect.

But, I'll tell you another thing, too. No way are they allowed access to guns without an adult present. We even keep amunition separately where they can't find it.

I'm sure the cops are on that. Was he a hunting buddy or what?

And they spoke to him without benefit of counsel? What kind of justice system do they have there?

prosecuting an 8 year old for murder or manslaughter or much of anything else. Obviosuly this story is just beginning to unfold.

and dad's friend abused him, I think a reduction in charges is in order...

And it's hard to conceive that an 8 year old should be charged as an adult in this case (I haven't seen if this is true or not, just sayin).

proceeding. It would be insane to prosecute him in that way.

While I'm on the topic, I have been involved as an expert in some cases involving very young children in serious cases. In a couple of instances the kids had mental ages below 8 (but were chronologically a little older, 11 or 12). The weird thing that turned up was that the kids clearly lacked the mental capacity to participate in their own defense, and on intellectual grounds did not have the capacity to either understand right from wrong or conform their behavior to the requirements of the law because they were so young. Fortunately for my case, they were retarded, so I could certify that their lack of capacity was due to "mental disease or defect." Had they been chronologically 8 as well as mentally 8 years old, then their lack of capacity would have been due to normal intellectual development, and I would not have been able to show the mental disease or defect required by the law. This anomoly arises, of course, because the framers of the law never conceived that it would be used on kids of this age.

don't have they don't have the capacity to understand what they have done.

on opposite ends of the country. WTF is wrong with these people.

Hearing from a few posters from an original thread on this story, this kid was SMART and CRAFTY and GROWN UP when he went out and killed those two men. Kids like him don't deserve a second chance, let him rot in jail :eyes:

a very very disturbed child if killed two people in cold blood. Eight years old is certainly old enough to know not to murder people.

It is a bit of blame the victim or there must be something wrong.

Some kids come out wrong. i remember a couple from elementary school I'm sure everyone else does to.

Some kids are simply evil. No matter what your religious beliefs there are broken people that cannot be fixed.

the parents should have been taught to keep the gun out of easy access to the child. We have guns in our homes and they are locked in a secure case at all times if they are not in use.

and the easier ones to use (small handguns) had a gun lock and were kept in a locked safe.

He didn't really have to worry about the black powder rifle, however... None of us kids could ever figure out how to load the damn thing :)

...there have been a lot of Darwin Awards given out to the gun freaks. Firearms in the hands of idiots seem to be a great way to thin the herd.

his father... not teaching gun safety, not keeping locks on the guns, etc.

If the dad had shot himself, fine... but to ruin a kid's life because you didn't care enough to lock up your weapons?

He should have shot himself before siring a child. I don't know if the kid will go to prison. I think 8 is a bit young, even for Texas. I could imagine him spending the next years of his life in a psychiatric clinic as something is definitely wrong with him. Time will tell.

I would think juvenile detention. Do they actually feel emotion in Texas?

so my snipe towards Texas was perhaps a bit unfair.

Well, not really. I recently got flamed here for making some unflattering remakes about the Lone Star State, but your question is legitimate as far as I am concerned.

Texas has a long way to go on the social-evolutionary scale. Remember Joe Horn, who shot two burglars as they were leaving his neighbor's house? The charges were dropped. They just love killin' in Texas.

for him to be able to do what is alleged he had done.

I would guess that there is a lot more to this story than the public is being told right now.

defend this act gun freaks!

I still don't understand the "NEED" to do any such thing of teaching children how to use guns. I see no need at all.

which my father in law's dad had used to kill himself, at 22 years old, over a bounced $2.00 check, leaving behind a pregnant 18 year old wife, with a three year old, two year old, and a one year old. I said, "we don't even give him a fork! He has no impulse control!" and my mother in law said, "If you keep saying that, that's how he'll always be." My husbands brother sulked and said, "I wanted that gun" This is in Georgia, and the in laws are complete church of christ nut fucks.

attitude about guns and their capabilities, there is no way he would shoot his father if there wasn't something else going on. Especially, since law enforcement suggests it wasn't a spur of the moment thing.

It is possible.

Why should we even have a juvenile justice system if they are going to charge 8 year olds as adults?
This kid obviously needs help to be rehibilitated, but to equate him as an adult is wrong.
I don't necessarily think that it is wrong to teach a child how to shoot if the child shows maturity and no signs of being a psychopathic murderer (some children do show those signs like enjoying killing little animals). I think that regardless though, guns shouldn't be accessible to childen without adult supervision. That means that the guns should have been locked with the key hidden from the child.

prairie dogs. Prairie dogs qualify as little animals, don't you think? So he was taught by his father how to kill "little animals."

And they probably weren't using those prairie dogs as meat.
I know that some people will defend "vermit" shooting, but perhaps it isn't something good to teach little boys. I think that it is bad for developing child's mind to teach them to enjoy killing, especially for the sake of killing.

to anything good, if the child has done as alleged.

because he couldn't have a PlayStation 3, or some other nonsense.
Since he knows where the guns are, he takes out his anger with it...
IF he wasn't abused, then this scenario is as good as any as to why he shot them.

8 cannot form adult intent, and to charge him as an adult is just lunacy.

mad at my parents and other grownups, but somehow I knew that shooting them was wrong. MOST KIDS DO. If they don't they are sick.

age, and I am a GIRL................in fact, went to Canada with them twice on hunting trips. And I never felt the need to shoot them.

There is much more to this than we're hearing.

Father recently remarried. The mother recently visited. Could be something as simple as kid wanting to live with the mother and not his father.

Fathers very rarely get custody of their kids, about the only reasons are abandonment of the family by the mother or severe abuse/drug/alcohol problems on her part.

Maybe she put the kid up to it. It wouldn't surprise me.

percent of fathers get custody nowdays. And there are more joint custody arrangements as well.

but I have not observed it. I'd sure be interested to see some sort of solid research backing up your observations.

I'm glad to see the joint custody arrangements, the court system has previously done a wonderful job of pitting divorced parents against each other, and the kids always suffer from that. Been there, done that.

Men don't have the market on abandoning their kids. More women are doing it.

you don't kill people. Something is wrong with this kid.

:eyes:

afraid of guns? Heck, an 8 year old should be afraid of guns. Some guy took his 8 year old to a gun show in Massachusetts and let him try a weapon way beyond an 8 year old and the the kid accidentally killed himself on the spot. I wanted to post about that when it happened, but I had a really hard time finding anything about it online.

starting at age 6 and 7.

When did that begin? When I was in Cub-, and Boy Scouts ('78-'83), firearms were strictly prohibited during all meetings, get-togethers and camp trips...

Yes I learned to shoot very early. We always had rifles loaded in the house. I knew/know what they can do and I have never shot anyone no matter how mad I was at them. My 3 children also grew up with loaded rifles in the house and where taught how to use them.

I live on a large farm in Nebraska and I do shoot prairie dogs. For those that think they are defenseless little animals they need to come to a prairie dog town and see the destruction. The grass is gone, the area stinks, and the area is filled with holes that can and do break legs on horses running through. They multiply like rats. The other option is poisoning them but running livestock on the same fields makes that prohibitive.

If the 8 year old did this, then I agree he has bigger problems then just being mad and knowing how to shoot.