Responsible Gun Ownership Just what does that catch-phrase mean? Authorities in Kitsap County, Washington have not ruled out charges against a Port Orchard father who gave his four year-old son the live shotgun shell that the boy used to shoot his mother. The unnamed father "is kicking himself" according to the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office: According to police, the boy's 25-year-old father had, at some point, given his son a shell to handle because he was curious about firearms and ammunition. The father told police he was not aware the boy still had the shell, Wilson said. On Monday afternoon, the boy's father was away from the family's home in the 10400 block of Glenwood Road Southwest in South Kitsap County. While his mother was on the phone with her back toward him, the boy found an unloaded semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun under a blanket on the bed, police said. The bolt was pulled back and locked open, Wilson said. "All the kid did was drop the shell in the chamber, touch the bolt release and pull the trigger," Wilson said. "He had probably seen his dad do it a hundred times." Wilson said the shotgun was still on the bed when it went off and that the boy did not lift it. A chair that was between the mother and the shotgun absorbed some of the impact, possibly preventing greater injury, Wilson said. The father "is kicking himself from here to next week," Wilson said. "The mother is injured, and the little boy is devastated that he did this to her." (Clarridge) Dave Workman, the senior editor at Gun Week, told The Seattle Times that such cases "remind firearm owners about the importance of gun safety and making sure their children understand they should never touch firearms without their parents' permission". But I also think that such cases remind sane people that one is only a "responsible gun owner" until they aren't. By then, of course, it's too late. The thing that gets me is that Port Orchard is a quiet town. This week I was out in a town called Shelton, Washington, helping friends work on their house. It's the kind of town where you can sleep with your door unlocked. Literally. One night while I was there, the front door had no knob or bolt, and only a shoe holding it closed against the wind. There were, of course, guns on three sides of us, because those residents are afraid of some criminal spectre. But, no, literally, it's the kind of town where you can leave your doors unlocked. Port Orchard is very much similar. So I do wonder what spectres haunted this family that they needed to keep a shotgun under a blanket on the bed. Or maybe that's just what a "responsible gun owner" does. ____________________ Notes: Clarridge, Christine. "Father 'kicking himself' after son, 4, shoots mother". The Seattle Times. October 26, 2010. SeattleTimes.NWSource.com. October 30, 2010. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013263901_momshot27m.html
OK...First off, I don't see why anyone would give a 4 year old a live shotgun shell.. Secondly..What was a shotgun doing on the bed under a blanket??:wtf:
The heart of the matter Valid questions, in my opinion, but who are we to question responsible gun owners?
No action should be taken, after all accident happen and I am sure, daddy learnt his lesson. Next time he will send the new mommy out of the house before he gives live ammo to the kid...
My father owned hunting rifles when I was little and he used to be an avid hunter back then. The guns were kept in a locked cabinet, way out of my reach and had a lock and padlock on it and the keys placed where I could not reach it at all. But what kind of a retard gives a 4 year old a live shell and then does not take it back off them? And what kind of a bigger retard leaves a shotgun under a blanket on the bed when you have children that small in the house? It defies any sense of logic. That poor kid. This is the kind of thing that stick with kids, even at that age. How horrible for that child.
I think the problem this shows is with the automatic assumption that people should have guns. There is no assumption about cars, if you want one you have to prove you can use it safely, if you fuck up the gov can take that privilege away possably with the car too. Yet guns which are there for no other reason than to kill get treated with a LOWER standed
