Bad example for CCW holders.

[oakchas]

4 YO shoots dad with dad's gun...

Dad has a permit.

Story here

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[ktulu92fs]

What an idiot. I NEVER leave a loaded gun around where my 3 year old can access it. If it's not on me in a holster, it's locked up where she can't even reach it.

[MattInFla]

I am glad to see he is facing charges for his criminally culpable negligence.

Every right comes with inalienable responsibilities. The right to own a a firearm comes with the responsibility to keep it stored in a manner that prevents it from falling into the wrong hands. Hands, for example, such as a 4 year old's.

Matt

[ANGLICO]

Stupid, Stupid, but then I repeat myself.

There is no excuse for this. Yes, it is a very bad example.

[Mike1956]

Those who cannot set the example become the example.

[msgt/ret]

Off scale stupid but for a change they reported the kid fired the gun not “it just went off”.

[tokerblue]

This is exactly the reason my gun is either on me or locked up. No matter how much you teach little kids about guns, they're still little kids.

[archer51]

Off scale stupid but for a change they reported the kid fired the gun not “it just went off”.

That was a misprint on their part.

[archer51]

Medical bills and legal fees aside. The dad faces even stiffer penalties if Department of Human Services decide they want to take the child from the home.

[sdprof]

Off scale stupid but for a change they reported the kid fired the gun not “it just went off”.

The earlier story wasn't so clear:

the boy found the unsecured weapon in his dad's truck, picked it up and it fired.

[Hopyard]

I have an opinion which differs from the crowd's viewpoint and the viewpoint of the law.
Yup, dad screwed up. Yup, he didn't exercise perfect diligence. Yup, we could consider him
negligent.

BUT---- kids do the darndest things and there is no such thing as 100% childproofing anything.

Dad took a bullet. He doesn't need the legal system to pile on top of him and add psychic pain to
his real pain. He knows what he did wrong. He learned a lesson the only way people ever really
learn, by making the mistake and hurting himself.

To exaggerate this to child endangerment, criminalize the incident, to my mind is over the top.

Yeah, I know, its the law. It is still over the top.

Stuff happens. People learn hard lessons. Their stories help others avoid mistakes.

So let's say the kid hurt himself, and actually killed himself instead. What good does piling on a grieving
dad do? Does it fix anything? Or does it just cost the taxpayer a bundle for a trial and jail?

Does anything really get accomplished that isn't already accomplished by publishing the story?

[mkh]

What an idiot. I NEVER leave a loaded gun around where my 3 year old can access it. If it's not on me in a holster, it's locked up where she can't even reach it.

Same here except that my kids are 14, 16, 18 and 21. The gun is on me or locked in my safe - no exceptions.

[DaveJay]

Same here except that my kids are 14, 16, 18 and 21. The gun is on me or locked in my safe - no exceptions.

This is something I'm having to relearn now that a 19-month old grandson is tottling around the house occasionally...

I'm pretty good at locking up the weapon on those days he's coming over and I'm working (damn federal government)...but he stayed overnight unexpectedly last week and I had the weapon in its place by the nightstand...

In the morning, I was cooking breakfast when I heard a scream and the wife and grandson were in the bedroom...he wandered over by my nightstand, and lucky for me was more interested in my iPhone than anything else...when the wife saw him and the weapon, she went ballistic (no pun intended)...and I know I was wrong...

Constant reinforcement of safety items.....I could have been this guy...

[Hopyard]

DJ-- I know you are going to work harder to make sure nothing happens. Your story however is a good example why
I don't like criminalizing failure to keep a handgun from a child. Had something happened, you'd be in serious
doo for something which was mostly beyond your ability to prevent. You didn't know the kid was coming to the house.
Your wife, certainly could have moved the gun, or kept a better eye on what the kid was doing. Yet, we all know who would have been blamed fully if there had been a calamity.

I'm all for protecting kids, but I've raised 'em, and no matter how hard you try they will do stuff --- like stick a pin or a screw
driver in an outlet. Are you guilty of child endangerment because you didn't plug the outlet? Keep the screw driver away from the kid? Both?

We have to be very careful as a people and as jurors to apply these laws in only those serious instances where the danger was
due to NOT CARING at all and not even trying.

[2edgesword]

We know for sure that there was a failure to secure this firearm. Fortunately the dad is suffering the consequences of that failure and not some innocent party or the kid, although I'm sure this kid was shaken up by the incident. Will the piling up of charges do anything to prevent other people from doing stupid things? Probably not.