Fresno girl fatally shot by 2-year-old brother

[jpak]

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18173578?nclick_check=1

Police are trying to determine how a 2-year-old Fresno boy got ahold of a gun with which he accidentally shot and killed his 6-year-old sister.

Sgt. Stephen Viveros tells the Fresno Bee the victim was playing with two other siblings in a bedroom in the family's home on Sunday when the toddler walked into the room with a loaded semi-automatic handgun. He says the boy fired a shot that mortally wounded his sister.

Viveros says officers seized a number of other weapons from the residence, home to five children, ages 2 to 15.

The Bee reports that the gun's owner was in another room when the shooting happened and could be charged with failing to secure the weapon.

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[AndyTiedye]

1. Stooopid in Freeperville

What kind of stoopid git leaves a loaded gun within reach of a 2-year old?
:wtf:

If this keeps up we're gonna have a mandate for "child-proof" guns.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. "child proof" guns?

You mean, some mechanism by which the safety switch is the default, and you MUST take a separate action other than pulling the trigger in order to fire the weapon?

Couldn't have that, now, could we?

[gejohnston]

4. California requires gun to be secured in safes.

Besides, it is just plain smart. If it were technically possible, it would have been done. Most likely by one of the European companies, they seem to be the most innovative in that way.

[Remmah2]

14. The safety device preventing children from getting firearms is called a condum.

Some people are too stupid and should not reproduce.

[pnwmom]

5. Freeperville? The gun owner could well be a Democrat.

[GreenStormCloud]

8. Freeperville? They were likely non-political and apathetic non-voters. N/T

[lawodevolution]

12. "if this keeps up". You mean the trend over the last fee decades in which accidental death rates

Have reduced significantly.

[ileus]

2. should be charged...

[indepat]

6. Guns don't kill people: people kill people

:shrug:

[gejohnston]

9. dumbass parents in this case.

[Remmah2]

15. Gun deaths of 2 years olds vs accidental drownings?

Beware the shallow end of the gene pool.

[GreenStormCloud]

7. Happens about 25 times a year. In a country of 310 million that isn't often. N/T

[ileus]

10. Being safe is so easy...keep your gun on your side, or locked up.

[Starboard Tack]

11. Only about half the gun homicides in the UK

Guess we can handle that. Lots of people to spare. How often would be unacceptable I wonder.

[GreenStormCloud]

13. How many child deaths from other accidents do you accept?

Guns are rather far down on the list of number of children killed, despite the hysteria of the antis.

[Starboard Tack]

16. How many child deaths do you "accept"?

Unfortunately, I've had to accept the death of a child in an auto accident. The worst moment in my life, but I had to accept it. But none are acceptable, if that's what you mean.

For the UK 16 were enough to take away the grownups' toys.
On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, aged 43, a former scout leader who had been ousted by The Scout Association five years previously, shot dead sixteen young children and their teacher, Gweneth Mayor, in Dunblane Primary School's gymnasium with his licensed firearms and ammunition.

It didn't result in hysteria, but national grief and a realization that it was time to grow up if we wanted our children to have a fair chance.
Your characterization of those who disagree with your choice as hysterical is insulting, both to those you attempt to describe and to women.

[gejohnston]

18. Isn't your last sentence kind of sexist?

[petronius]

19. I believe he's commenting about the etymology of "hysteria" - but it's not real

common the connect the historical usage to the modern meaning... :shrug:

[Starboard Tack]

22. And how would it be sexist?

I was referring to his use of the word "hysterical", which is demeaning to women.

[rl6214]

36. Men can't be "hysterical"?

[Starboard Tack]

44. The term is offensive.

In the Western world, until the seventeenth century, hysteria referred to a medical condition thought to be particular to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus (from the Greek ὑστέρα "hystera" = uterus). The origin of the term hysteria is commonly attributed to Hippocrates, even though the term isn't used in the writings that are collectively known as the Hippocratic corpus. The Hippocratic corpus refer to a variety of illness symptoms, such as suffocation and Heracles' disease, that were supposedly caused by the movement of a woman's uterus to various locations within her body as it became light and dry due to a lack of bodily fluids. One passage recommends pregnancy to cure such symptoms, ostensibly because intercourse will "moisten" the womb and facilitate blood circulation within the body.

By the mid to late 19th century, hysteria (or sometimes female hysteria) came to refer to what is today generally considered to be sexual dysfunction. Typical treatment was massage of the patient's genitalia by the physician and, later, by vibrators or water sprays to cause orgasm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteria

[Euromutt]

21. So have you been advocating the complete prohibition of privately owned motor vehicles since?

Or have you come to terms with the fact that the negligence of the motorist who caused the collision that resulted in the death of your child is insufficient reason to deprive the millions of drivers who have never caused a collision of a convenient and practical mode of transporting themselves, their family members and their possessions?

For the record, more children aged 10 and under are killed annually in the United States from "back-over" motor vehicle accidents alone than are from unintentionally inflicted gunshot wounds.

It didn't result in hysteria, but national grief and a realization that it was time to grow up if we wanted our children to have a fair chance.

Really? How did that work out for Rhys Jones, Kamilah Peniston, James Smartt-Ford, Michael Dosunmu, Billy Cox, Maisie Harrison, Agnes Sina-Inakoju, Marvin Henry, Samuel Ogunro, Samuel Adelagun, Charlie Wright, Annaka Keniesha Pinto, Abukar Mahamud, Mohamed Abdi Farah, Amin Ahmed Ismail and Thusha Kamaleswaran, to name sixteen minors who have died of gunshot wounds in the past four years in the UK? Several of them were actually killed with sub-machine guns, which is damn near unheard of in the United States.

Here's an interesting article from the Grauniad, "London gun crime rises as shootings nearly double":

Scotland Yard has admitted a 17% rise in overall firearms offences <from 2008 to 2009>, although the Metropolitan police chief, Sir Paul Stephenson, has put that down to a blip.

Stephenson last week dropped a plan to put routine armed patrols on the streets, saying that although gun crime had risen it was still lower than two years ago <...>

The fact that the numbers were higher in 2007 is not exactly testimony to the effectiveness of the UK's gun laws.

Those discharging the firearms and those being shot at are young teenagers involved in "respect shootings" to settle petty disputes with little thought of the consequences, say police and community leaders. <...>

Those working at local level in the capital say the number of incidents reported is only a fraction of what is taking place.

"Gun crime has never gone away," said the Rev Les Isaac, who works as a street pastor in south London. "Firearms are being discharged more or less on a daily basis in some parts of London."

And that's not even taking into account the number of British kids who have been knifed to death in the past decade or so.

Why is it so hard to wrap your head around the idea that the problem is less the prevalence of firearms, but rather of the willingness--indeed, desire--to use them to do ill?

[Starboard Tack]

25. It is not hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that

"the problem is less the prevalence of firearms, but rather of the willingness--indeed, desire--to use them to do ill?"
My question to you is - do you think those kids who were killed by guns or knives should have been carrying guns themselves?
You appear to be proposing the elimination of all guns and knives as the solution if gun crime is never going to go away as long as guns are available. Which is what the UK is trying to do. Not an easy task as long as they are still being manufactured. A little draconian, but if that's what it takes...
Or do you have another solution?

[Euromutt]

39. No, evidently it is

You appear to be proposing the elimination of all guns and knives as the solution if gun crime is never going to go away as long as guns are available.

That is exactly what I'm not proposing. What I'm saying is that if you want to reduce violent crime, you have to address the reasons people threaten or inflict lethal force on each other, not one subset of the means they use to do so.

[Starboard Tack]

45. "if you want to reduce violent crime...

you have to address the reasons people threaten or inflict lethal force on each other"

Absolutely, and part of the solution might be not to peddle the tools of violent crime, like handguns, which are designed specifically to kill or maim.

Do you support nuclear proliferation also.

[rrneck]

46. Kill or maim who? nt

[Starboard Tack]

47. I don't think the peddlers consider who gets shot, just their profit margin

[eqfan592]

48. Thanks, sharesunited...

...oh, wait....

EDIT: I just don't get you sometimes. At times you seem down with rational discussions, then other times you go off the deep end with stuff like this "peddler" garbage and comparisons to nuclear proliferation?

:shrug:

[rrneck]

49. Maim or kill who? nt

[Euromutt]

50. Answer me this: do you believe mere possession of a weapon will make someone a killer?

Because unless you do, nothing you said makes sense.

Not, I hasten to point out, that it makes sense to believe that possession alone of a lethal weapon will cause a person to become homicidal where, all other things being equal, without the weapon he would not even resort to violence.

And whether I "support nuclear proliferation" very much depends on the government that's looking to acquire nuclear weapons. I'm considerably more sanguine about India having nuclear weapons than about North Korea having them, for example, and I'd be less bothered if Brazil or Estonia tried to acquire them than if Venezuela or Syria did, because different countries have different motivations for acquiring such weapons, just like different people have different motivations for acquiring firearms. When a thuggish autocratic regime wants nukes, chances are they're not going to want them for legitimate purposes, whereas a stable democracy under the rule of law is more likely to want them to deter a thuggish neighbor.

[baldguy]

24. The point is it shouldn't happen ever.

EVER!

Accidental guns deaths are a product of having too many guns in circulation. Period. There is no reason such a tragedy should occur.

But I guess "responsible gun owners" can accept any number of accidental deaths from guns, just as long as they can have access to their toys without restrictions. Right?

[GreenStormCloud]

27. Accidental drownings in swimming pools shouldn't happen ever.

EVER!

Accidental swimming pool deaths are a product of having too many pools in back yards. Period. There is no reason such a tragedy should occur.

But I guess "responsible pool owners" can accept any number of accidental deaths from guns, just as long as they can have access to their toys without restrictions. Right?

/sarcasm

All human activity has some casualties, even walking. In 2007, 136 children under five died from accidents not involving a motor vehicle while walking. Guns only killed 25.

[baldguy]

28. Here we go again with the straw man false equivalency bullshit.

Swimming pools aren't designed to kill people. Handguns are.

When you use a swimming pool in the manner it was intended & for activities it was designed for, you get wet & have fun. When you use a handgun in the manner it was intended & for activities it was designed for, you kill another human being.

Big difference.

[GreenStormCloud]

31. Your argument is irrelevant.

The fact is that there are five times as many todler deaths from walking as there are from guns.

When used properly guns are a lot of fun and can also be a critical tool in protecting the lives of yourself or your family.

[rrneck]

33. Kill who? nt

[Euromutt]

38. What's false about it? The victim is equally dead

A swimming pool, by definition, is designed to hold a volume of water in which a human being can be fully submerged and drown. That makes it inherently potentially lethal.

A motor vehicle, by definition, is a two-ton-plus bludgeon capable of traveling at speeds of dozens of miles an hour and transferring sufficient kinetic energy to anything in its way to cause fatal blunt force trauma.

The only thing false here is your pretense that people killed by drowning, or motor vehicle collisions, or dog attacks for that matter, are somehow not as dead as victims of fatal gunshot wounds, because you don't want to give up the first three. Your unwillingness to apply the arguments you're happy to use against private gun ownership against the things you like makes you a hypocrite.

[rl6214]

40. Here we go again with the "pools aren't designed to kill" whining

Pools aren't designed to kill, yet they do. Doesn't that mean we should really ban pools since they so often do what they are NOT designed to do? They do it much more often than a gun yet you really, really, really want to get rid of those things. But everybody loves pools, there would be a HUGE national uproar if you tried getting rid of those.

"When you use a swimming pool in the manner it was intended & for activities it was designed for, you get wet & have fun. " And drown. People can still die.



"When you use a handgun in the manner it was intended & for activities it was designed for" you can have a lot of fun and no one has to die, only in your mind do you have to "kill a human being".

[rl6214]

37. You can't have my pool OR my guns.

Not gonna happen until I decide I don't want to clean my pool anymore, then I'll move to a house without a pool.

My guns? Not gonna happen. My kids will inherit them.

[rrneck]

34. How mamy fewer guns will eliminate all accidents?

:rofl:

[DissedByBush]

17. Could be charged?

The adult needed to be arrested on the spot.

[gejohnston]

20. Probably were arrested for unsafe storage at the very least

Charging, is up to the lawyers if I understand the difference correctly.

[jpak]

23. The police seized 53 guns from that home

hoarder

yup

[ileus]

26. 53 firearms....a good start maybe, horder hardly.

[eqfan592]

29. Yeah, a nice collection at best...

...but far from a horde.

[rl6214]

41. 53 guns? Amatuer

[WatsonT]

30. Charge the gun owner for negligence. Next!

[baldguy]

32. More like manslaughter.

Depraved indifference. Murder.

[gejohnston]

42. over the top and would never fly with a jury.

[WatsonT]

43. Sure why not. And then bring him before the hague for war crimes

Torture him to death then kill his entire remaining family. Also anyone who is his friend on facebook.

I would say let his pets live but then I tend to be overly forgiving.

[rl6214]

35. Fresno girl fatally shot *ALLEGEDLY* by 2-year-old brother

You forgot a key word there according to one of your anti-gun breatheren but I fixed it for you.

It's been pointed out numerous times by another poster here that you have to include this word, *allegedly*.

Don't forget for future use.