Strollerderby : gun safety

Mother of Slain Boy Denied Right to Sue

Shannon LC Cate — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

The mother of an eight-year old boy shot and killed by the biological son of his foster parents was denied the right to sue the social workers responsible in the case. According to the Joplin Globe:

"Braxton Wooden Jr. was shot in the head by Mark and Treva Gordon’s 14-year-old biological son, [Ethan] on June 2, 2005, during a game of “cops and robbers” with a handgun taken from a bedroom closet of the Gordons’ home.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis decided that because there was no evidence that the social worker and her supervisor had any knowledge of the presence of unsecured firearms in the home, the case did not rise to the standard of “conscience-shocking conduct” required to override a qualified immunity from lawsuits under which the Department of Social Services and state social workers operate."

When the social workers come to my house to do a six-month update of our foster license, they always ask "are any guns in your home in a locked cabinet?" To which we reply that we have no guns in our home. Every time I am shocked that a foster license is an option for gun-owners at all. Call me a big-city elitist, but a I don't believe a locked cabinet would stop a determined 14-year old any more than a bedroom closet would. And it's clear in this case that the 14-year old was determined to play with his parents' guns. He lied to investigators at first, claiming the eight-year old had shot himself. Later, other foster children who had stayed in the home testified that they had been chased by the boy more than once while he brandished "one or more of three handguns that were in the home" and had seen him loading and unloading the guns.

If the social workers aren't responsible for this tragedy, who is? Because when the state takes the drastic step of removing a child from the home of his birth, it had better make sure that the place it puts that child is safer than home. Protecting the professionals responsible for assuring this when they fail is not in the best interest of children. Not only should this boy's mother be allowed to sue the state, she should be awarded huge punitive damages to teach the state a lesson.

Toddler Dies Playing with Loaded Handgun

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:40:00 GMT

According to Jason R. Matteau’s MySpace page, his main interest is “shooting rifle and pistol” and his greatest fear in life is “losing his son.” It’s impossible to imagine the hell he must be going through, now that his greatest fear has come to pass as a direct result of his interest in guns.

While at home with both of his parents and his baby sister, Matteau’s two-year-old son, Wyatt, founded a loaded handgun. He picked it up and the gun went off, shooting a bullet through Wyatt’s head.

Detectives have ruled the death accidental, which seems clear judging even from a quick peak at the parents’ MySpace pages, both of which are covered in photos of their two children and messages such as “I have the best children in the world.” However, the investigation continues into possible wrongdoing on the part of the Matteaus, since Connecticut state law prohibits storing loaded handguns in a place where anyone under 16 might be able to find them.

Five-Year-Old Boy Kills Four-Year-Old Sister

Amy S.F. Lutz — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:32:00 GMT

It's a tragedy whenever a child gets his hands on a gun and it accidentally goes off. But how to handle a case in which a five-year-old boy deliberately retrieves his father's gun from the top of a bookcase after having a "confrontation" with his younger sister, Makayla, then goes and shoots her at close range?

A prosecutor in Marion County, Indiana, decided to file charges . . . against the boy's father.

James Booher was charged with three felony counts of child neglect, one of which carries a sentence of 20-50 years in prison. He was arrested at the close of his daughter's funeral.

The prosecutor, Carl Brizzi, argued that Booher was responsible because he knew his son was capable of firing the gun, as he had done so less than a year ago, when he fished his father's gun from the top of the refrigerator and shot a hole in a kitchen cabinet.

Booher claimed in his defense that he thought the gun wasn't loaded, since the magazine had been pulled. Police found that a bullet had remained in the gun even after the magazine was removed.

Other weapons were readily available in the house, Brizzi said, including Chinese throwing stars and samurai swords. He called the home "a dangerous environment."

The boy and his older sister were placed in foster care.

Keep Kids From Shooting By Giving Them Guns?

Karen Murphy — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:33:00 GMT

Kids don't kill kids, right? Guns kill kids. If they have guns, that is. So why is England's Lord Tebbit advocating giving guns to kids? Simple. To make them more conscious of what guns do.

In other words, kids will learn not to point guns at each other later in life when they get all hormonal and angry if they've had some experience blowing the heads off small furry animals. Makes sense, right? Sort of?

But I'm guessing that the average kid is going to react one of three ways to going along "on shoots" (aka hunting parties):

1. AAAGH! Bambiiiii! Guns are bad! Take me home, Mommy!

2. Cool. Can we do it again tomorrow?

3. Boring. What's for lunch?

I agree that kids should be aware of what guns do, but I'm not sure that shooting at animals is the best way to do this. What about you? Were you raised in a gun-friendly culture, and do you plan to also expose your kids? Surely knowing all the requisite safety aspects about guns would be a good thing, but I'm not sure I can stomach this: "Once you see what a gun can do to a small animal you are less likely to use it on a human being." I mean, really? Or don't you simply become desensitized?

Or are you as a parent completely put off by guns, let alone the thought of your kid touching one?

Or can there be a double standard—guns are okay for adults but not for kids? Where do you fall on this?

Photo: www.radionetherlands.nl

Hide-And-Seek Turns Deadly

Madeline Holler — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:32:00 GMT

I may lean a little more toward gun-control laws and a little away from the NRA, but mostly I'm into common sense when it comes to using guns. Shouldn't it go without saying that you don't just fire your automatic weapon into furniture ever, ever, ever?

An 11-year-old boy in Florida was killed during a game of hide-and-seek after his neighbor unwittingly fired his semiautomatic weapon into the abandoned sofa the boy was hiding behind. He was shot several times including once in the head. The gunman fled when he realized what had happened, but has since turned himself in.

You know, no wonder kids never play outside and their parents don't let them. What a waste.

5-Year Old Boy Shoots Bear, Grandpa Calls Davy Crocket A Pansie

makeitadouble — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:00:00 GMT

As our children grow up, there are firsts and milestones we parents can look forward to experiencing with our hearts swelling with pride, our blubbering eyes welling with tears and with $1500 state-of-art digital video cameras held in our hands capturing the monumental achievement to thereafter broadcast to the world on our personal blogs or YouTube if it’s humorous in any way.

Their first tentative steps, first intelligible words, first time they use the potty, their first shaky pedals on a bike without training wheels and of course the first time they bag a black bear 12 times their size with a youth rifle.

Tre Merritt, a 5-year old from Arkansas who has been handling firearms since he was 2 ½ years old, shot and killed a 445lb Black Bear while hunting with his grandfather last Sunday. According to Mike Merritt, the boy’s “paw-paw”, Davy Crocket, the legendary coonskin cap sporting pioneer, is Tre’s 10th great-grandfather. Incidentally The Ballad of Davy Crockett implies that he killed his first bear at the age of three to which “paw-paw” scoffed, “I really doubt if Davy killed one when he was three.”

If you will excuse me a moment, I just need to get my soapbox set up before I continue. OK, now I’m ready. Ahem. Putting aside my opinions about the egregious misinterpretations of the Second Amendment, my objections to what I perceive as the cruelty of hunting, the troubling number of recent school shootings and the tragic Omaha mall shooting massacre, to let any child whether they be 2 ½ or 5 handle firearms and hunt for carnivorous animals even under the supervision of an adult warrants an investigation by child protective services and is an indication that the child’s home is an unsafe place for minors.

Teaching gun safety and putting a gun in the hands of a 5-year old boy who doesn’t have the emotional maturity to fully comprehend the dangers of hunting, the consequences of mishandling a weapon and the permanence of death is irresponsible and borderline abuse. Isn’t it bad enough children are already exposed to excessive violence in the media and in video games like World of Warcraft, although the latter may help kids survive a moose attack.

The boy’s father said the family plans to get a life-sized mount of the bear, but is still unsure where they’re going to put it; Might a recommend looking for space towards the back of the trailer or perhaps near the stenographer in Family Court.

~~And can someone tell me why I can’t find this story on YouTube?~~

Found it.

Gun Safety: Some Parents Enjoy Russian Roulette

Melissa Summers — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:03:00 GMT

A survey of 96 pediatrician's offices in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico found one-quarter of 3,754 families had a gun in in the home. In 70% of those homes parents said they hadn't taken "adequate precautions" to store their firearm safely. These are parents who like to live on the edge. I guess?

The study suggested pediatricians take a role in promoting gun safety in homes by asking parents if there are guns in the home and if they are stored safely in the same way they ask if your child rides in a car seat. 18 states have child-access protection laws which make parents or other adults liable when an accident or death occurs from a child finding an unsecured gun.

The study defined "safe storage" as "guns being unloaded, locked in a cabinet or with a gun lock, with ammunition stored separately". I wonder how many parents have their guns locked but not unloaded or unloaded, but not locked and that affected the high number of supposedly 'unsafe' homes the study found. I don't own a gun and have no plans to ever own a gun, however it seems to me that the main reason one has a gun is for protection. If the gun is unloaded and locked and the ammunition is stored elsewhere how do you get to it quickly in a crisis situation? I know people can be really stupid but I can't believe over half of parents in the study would purposely put their kids at risk.

For gun safety information see The Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence.