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Accidental Wii Suicide
Paul Taylor noted a story that I would have thought to be an April Fool's Day joke a few weeks from now, which makes it only seem more tragic. A 3-year-old shot herself with a gun after mistaking it for a Wii controller.
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But the fact that there are no charges being pressed enrages me.
Are you a parent? There's absolutely NOTHING they could do to the guy that would be worse than losing a child. I wouldn't be surprised if he winds up comitting suicide intentionally, with the same gun. I can't imagine how much this guy's hurting right now.
I'd also betting his marriage is over. Yes, charges of child endangerment could be filed, but no punishment is going to change anything; no punishment that state can inflict will come close to what he's done to himself.
I am a parent, and my eyes tear up thinking about a child dying, mine or one I've never met - they are all tragedies. However, in this case the *stepfather* left a gun around that killed a child that wasn't his. He may or may not be suffering, and it should be investigated.
cheers,
Andrew
... But you have to read the article to see "Smith and Wesson". Unreal.
I can see where the conversation gets muddy when someone commits a violent act after playing violent video games. Not saying anything about that beyond that its at least an interesting topic. But when a TODDLER finds a LOADED GUN ON A COFFEE TABLE and SHOOTS HERSELF WITH IT are we really going to try to blame it on VIDEO GAMES?!?!?!
Why stick up for big business?
It's fairly common to chamber a round when you are carrying, especially concealed. I don't carry with a round in the chamber, as it too dangerous and too easy to snag the trigger and shoot yourself. Many current gen guns have a "palm safety" where you have to be gripping the gun correctly, which applies force to a pressure pad on the back of the grip and allows the trigger to be depressed into the firing position. Still though, too risky in my mind.
My best educated guess is that what happened was that the little girl was holding the gun upside-down and looking down the barrel, with her thumb looped through the trigger. Basically imagine holding a gun where the barrel is directly up in the air, and you've got your thumb against the trigger and are holding the bottom of the grip with your fingers wrapped around it. She squeezed to hold it tight, as it natural to do in that position, and shot herself. I've read a few cases of this position in holding the gun causing this accident. It's absolutely terrible.
Link to an appropriate story: the "crime" is somewhat different (I consider it a more excusable crime than leaving a loaded gun lying around), but it's still a case of memory failure, and the fact remains that any accidental death tends to punish the parents incredibly severely; they aren't about to do this again just because they weren't punished the first time.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
A lack of remorse is often used as a reason for harsher punishment, why shouldn't feeling remorse be a reason for lesser punishment?
After reading the article, I have to respectfully disagree about this case. It does seem like this is criminal negligence on the part of the stepfather as well as the mother. They neglected to teach their child about the dangers of firearms, and by letting it play with a realistic toy made the situation worse by making it seem harmless. This is on top of the grossly negligent way the firearm was left loaded and unsupervised.
Still, I don't think further punishment is necessary because it won't have any preventative effect. The guy isn't likely to make that mistake again, and the chance that prosecuting him will scare others into being more careful is also just not there. But yes, investigate, find out what went wrong and how to avoid a repeat.
I am a gun owner. This guy needs to be locked up for the rest of his life because he is an idiot. I do not leave a gun loaded in the house. Easy to load yes, but not loaded. I don't have any children that young and both of my kids shoot with me. All of my guns are always secured, even after intruder checks.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
What I want to know is why the safety wasn't set on the gun.
It looks like the firearm in question is a S&W .380 Sigma. It is "double-action" only: each pull of the trigger draws back the hammer to fire. There's no external safety.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_&_Wesson#Sigma_series
I haven't been able to find anything that indicates the weight of the trigger for that gun. I'll venture that it's probably about 6-8 pounds, but some DA guns are as high as 13 pounds.
I'm also vaguely curious as to what sort of shooting game the kid was playing that involved pointing the gun at himself....
As you and several others have mentioned, it's unlikely the child would be able to pull the trigger with her trigger finger. And I suspect that's what happened: The child picked up the firearm by mistake and tried to pull the trigger. When it didn't work, she fumbled with it and pointed the firearm at herself as she pulled the trigger with her thumb.