A four year old boy was killed while sitting in church with his mother on New Years.

[Stinky The Clown]

This sort of story makes me simultaneous sad and angry.

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/22106539/detail.html

4-Year-Old Hit By Bullet At Church Dies
Officials: Stray Bullet Came From Celebratory Gunfire


DECATUR, Ga. -- A 4-year-old boy who was struck by a stray bullet while at church died Friday.

The incident happened around midnight Friday during a New Year’s Eve watch service at the Covington Drive Church Of God of Prophecy in Decatur.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shot that came through the roof of the church and struck the child, who was identified as Marquel Peters.

"It's hard. He was my only child. He was only 4. He was a smart little boy, he was so sweet," said his mother, Nathalee Peters.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I wish to hell we could successfully shut down a-holes with guns and fireworks on New Years Eve...

And the Fourth of July... but it's just not practical.

Still, I hope more is done.

Very sad, I feel so much for that poor mother.

:cry:

[JI7]

3. what kind of way of celebrating is that anyways

i just think people who do it are loser fucking assholes. losers who think they are so tough firing some guns.

[NYC_SKP]

7. And they shoot them into the air. They should shoot them into their f'n lawns...

...or bare patches of earth as they don't tend to be the greatest gardeners, hereabouts anyway.

[SteveM]

23. Actually, it's dangerous as well to shoot into your lawn...

a bullet can ricochet off a hard and hidden object. The safe use of firearms does not include shooting into the air or into the ground.

[Caliman73]

45. They should not shoot period.

There is no valid reason to shoot a firearm to celebrate. It is a stupid and dangerous practice that makes no sense to anyone with half a brain.

[Aristus]

78. Oh come on; I'm sure they were "law-abiding citizens"...

:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

82. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[napi21]

2. The boy's father said it was probably somebody shooting into the

air to celebrate the New Year. They probably don't know they shot somebody!

[JI7]

6. anyone who does that is an asshole

[napi21]

13. I've been around when this was done, but it was always in

rural areas where the surroundings were woods and the risk was as close to zero as you can get! I agree, anyone who does that near other houses or buildings is an AH!

[Guilded Lilly]

10. well you know what...

I hope that every ignorant shit that shot a gun into the air is riddled with eternal gutwrenching guilt thinking this may have been their gd bullet and that they are a murderer.

[1]

4. when i lived in california shooting guns in the air was a new years tradition. fucked up tradition.

i didn't know it was an east coast thing too.

[Sultana]

5. Condolences

I can't imagine the pain she's going through. :(

[lazarus]

80. I can, and have

and she won't get over this. Ever.

[Historic NY]

8. Its like were a Third World Country shooting guns into the air...

Where's the NRA on this one?

[1]

9. its a cultural thing...

[Historic NY]

15. Cultural its illegal and its stupid and unsafe.

[1]

16. all true. its nothing i ever did, not my culture. some people just don't get it...

[Cirque du So-What]

51. Some cultures cut the heart out of a living human being on an altar to some god or other

Does that make it acceptable because it was 'cultural?' Oh, that's right...their 'culture' was lacking in areas that allowed for its perpetuation. I'm pretty sure that firing ballistic weaponry into the air to celebrate the passage of a complete revolution of the earth around the sun doesn't constitute good 'cultural' practice either.

[kevinbgoode]

Well, I suppose the dumbshits who shoot up into the air like that

are as wacky as the dominionists who don't believe in science. . .they must assume there is no law of gravity either.

This story just sickens me. There is just no excuse to fire a gun up into the air as if the bullet isn't going to land somewhere. And will anyone come forward and take responsibility for doing this?

[Historic NY]

81. Its science what goes up must come down..

[SteveM]

18. If you have evidence that the NRA supports this, let's see it...

The NRA, for all its faults, has always supported and trained people NOT to do the kinds of things in the OP.

I think you know this.

[Walk away]

11. guns = bad ...... that poor baby nt

[proteus_lives]

42. Poor logic.

Misusing guns= bad.

There, I fixed it for you.

[Walk away]

53. Another gun nut heard from. You should stay away from...

babies being shot threads. You just appear creepie and teabaggie.

[proteus_lives]

70. Really?

Hmm.

Another grabber heard from.

Keeping blaming tools, you appear nonsensical and too lazy/scared to tackle the real problems.

[Danger Mouse]

12. I hope the idiot responsible for this is proud of him/herself.

Cretin. :grr:

[Libertas1776]

14. Its illegal to fire a gun in the air

of course, that didn't stop some asshole from doing just that and killing an innocent toddler in the process. I hope they find the piece of shit.

[onehandle]

17. Just a few miles from me. Meanwhile, our GOP dominated state is trying to spread guns far and wide.

Guns can do no harm, y'know.

[SteveM]

22. Making hay out of this tragedy? (nt)

[1]

19. guns are not bad. idiots are bad. many get drunk on new years and drive. cars = bad?

hell, many get drunk every day and drive.

yep, i gotta go with cars = bad.

they kill more than guns by 10's of thousands.

let's ban cars...

[villager]

27. actually, if we could get guns even remotely as regulated as cars...

...that'd be a start...

[1]

28. a start to what? tell me how your car analogy works here. i don't get it...

[LanternWaste]

76. No. You probably don't.

"i (sic) don't get it..."

No. You probably don't.

[1]

84. no, munch. i (sic) don't get it. 'splain it to me. give it your best shot.

asshole (not sic)

[blondeatlast]

55. Indeed, indeed. nt

[NutmegYankee]

65. Considering that anybody can own a car, you might want to rethink that...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

75. Guns are far more regulated than cars.

[mitchtv]

20. lots of it around here

I went out to see fireworks and quickly retreated inside; rapid firing too, for a good 10-15 minutes. sounded like Bolivia in one of their many revolutions

[eilen]

21. That is really shitty.

Poor kid should have been home safe in bed at midnight.

[TicketyBoo]

66. You've rather missed the point, Ellen.

A stray bullet could have as easily killed him in his "safe" bed as in church.

The moral is not to shoot guns in the air; what goes up must come down, and this time that bullet came down and killed a four-year-old child.

Being home in bed does not automatically make people safer from idiots who indiscriminately shoot guns into the air.

[aikoaiko]

24. I don't know a single gun owner who thinks firing in the air is a responsible act.

And within the city limits in most metropolitan areas, its also illegal to fire a weapon (not in self-defense)>

[keep_it_real]

25. This country needs some real internal change.

From the grass roots on up wall street and Washington. Not one man talking change but millions of Americans changed and ready to perfect out nation.

[1]

26. right on! where do we start?

[Lost-in-FL]

29. I don't remember New Years Eve being a religious holiday.

Hard to tell but would't it be better if people with small children keep their kids at home where they are safer? We can argue about guns all we want but guns are here to stay. Lets not act like people don't use guns on New years eve. People, specially parents w small children should be well aware of the dangers of hanging out so late and what could happen during such festivities to their children. If it is not some assholes driving drunk it would be some other jackass w a gun. It is not like there are no daytime church services.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

30. Are you serious?

I mean.....really?

[Lost-in-FL]

31. So parents should not be proactive?

Be watchful of what could happen specially on new years eve?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

32. The child was in a church, indoors

There's nothing to suggest that any sort of festival was going on nearby which permitted random shooting in the air.

And children have been struck by stray gunfire in their own homes before. Do you suggest parents lock their kids in the basement on New Year's Eve?

[Lost-in-FL]

33. How many kids were gunned down on their homes this year on new years eve?

Are you suggesting kids are better protected from gun fire at church?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

34. Sounds like the New Year's celebration hasn't ended for you yet

Have a good night.......

[fizzgig]

83. we had one in denver last year

http://cbs4denver.com/local/denver.11th.homicide.2.621146.html

an 11-year old girl was killed by a stray bullet while attending a party at a family member's home.

[dorkulon]

35. Wow, this is really pretty dumb.

You're straining pretty hard to blame the victim here, aren't you?

[Lost-in-FL]

36. Am I blaming the victim or stating that accidents happen during new years eve?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. You're blaming the victim.

You're arguing that if he had stayed in his home, instead of his high risk, unsafe, totally irresponsible decision to attend CHURCH (BAH BUH BUM!), he'd still be alive.

[Lost-in-FL]

38. Church, strip club, camping out.

Stray bullets are a posibility just like drunken driving.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. Yet homes are bulletproof, apparently.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

40. Or maybe not.....

http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=11757524

http://savannahnow.com/news/2010-01-03/effingham-county-man-hit-stray-new-years-bullet

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/01/shots_fired_into_two_flint_hom_1.html

[dorkulon]

43. Clearly those are jst irresponsible people. They should have been in their basements.

After all, accidents happen!

[Lost-in-FL]

44. Hey Einstein. How about those without a basement?

What should they do? Leave the house?

[dorkulon]

46. You're serious, aren't you?

Never mind. Seriously, just forget it.

[Lost-in-FL]

49. Apparently you think this is a joke.

And if it makes you feel better to joke about it go ahead. Accidents happen every year but apparently reminding people to be proactive is not well accepted among the wise. Only moaning and whining about the obvious, that some asshole was shooting during the new year celebrations, is the only right answer here. Go ahead, whine and moan. Who is that going to help?

[dorkulon]

50. Yeah, you're really just trying to help.

My mistake. At first I got the mistaken impression that you were just being a pointlessly spiteful asshole, gruesomely blaming a child's parents for his entirely unpredictable death which was not in any way their fault. I apologize.

[blondeatlast]

56. Wow. Please tell me you are kidding. nt

[redwitch]

63. The child was in a safe place.

The asshole with the gun is the problem. Children get shot with stray bullets at home too. At noon, at dinnertime. The problem is not that he was at church. Sheesh.

[Codeine]

64. How would a house have been safer?

How the hell can one be "proactive" (god I hate that term) against a completely bizarre accident like this? A bullet has as much chance of penetrating your roof as it does penetrating a church's roof -- which is to say not much.

[TicketyBoo]

67. You've missed the point.

Being home doesn't necessarily make you "safer" on an occasion such as this. He could have just as easily been killed by a stray bullet at home as at a church service.

I don't think being at a midnight church service constitutes "hanging out so late." Many people go to midnight church services, and they certainly should feel safe while doing so.

Don't blame the mother for this one, please. It's not like she took her son to some wild New Year's bash.

Blame the idiot who shot the gun.

[eilen]

68. I think Lost, we are the only idiots here

who believe that having small children at home on New Year's Eve might keep them safe from yahoos shooting bullets up in the air (or the drunk lazy yahoo from shooting his gun into a church) and from drunk yahoos driving around in their vehicles shooting up in the air... I know I try to stay off the streets at that time on New Years Eve to stay safe, who knew that small children are assumed to be relatively safe anywhere at midnight on NY's eve. Shit, no one has common sense.

And I live in upstate NY. We have no tradition of shooting one's guns here at midnight and I still would not be taking any 4 year old out at that time-- church or no church. However, I have taken my 17 year old to an all night "keep the kids in" party with his friends where they stay up all night dancing, playing video games and laser tag at a church when he was younger. The last time he said he no longer wanted to go as he felt pressured about religion. Anyway, I would not want him shot.

I think it goes without saying (which is why I think you didn't) that shooting guns up in the air is pretty stupid and reckless.

[Lost-in-FL]

72. Amen.

I was thought as a child to stay off the streets on new years eve during the hours of 11pm to 1am because of 1) drunken drivers, 3) people trying to get home in a hurry and 2) stray bullets. That stuck to me to this day. Add to this the fact that I am a healthcare worker that have heard and seen enough accidents during new years eve. Unfortunately what is common sense to some isn't to others.

[eilen]

85. I'm a health care worker as well

and am well acquainted with NY's Eve/Day admissions.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

74. Comments on the three links I posted above?

All incidents, just this year of people being shot in their homes by stray bullets.

Again, if people aren't safe in their own damn homes on New Year's, nevermind in public, where do you suggest they go then? Nowhere is safe.

Furthermore, why let our children out on the streets period when there are child molesters out there? Apparently you don't think it's the child molester's fault if stupid parents allow their kids out in public, right?

A person should be able to go to a church or sit in their living room on New Year's Eve and not worry about stray gunfire. Clearly these stories show people can't.

[proteus_lives]

41. When I was a boy, my father taught me never to shoot into the air.

This is why.

[ZombieHorde]

47. I was taught the same thing for the same reason. nt

[Caliman73]

48. True

My father taught me that firearms are tools that can have devastating consequences if misused. People who do not respect the potential power of firearms and the consequences of their use are idiots.

[Tim01]

54. Slight argument here.

A bullet goes up being pushed by like 65,000 ft lbs of energy. It comes down being pulled by gravity, and it's tumbling.
When I was a kid in Texas we used to shoot our shotguns into the air just to listen to the lead shot fall around us like rain. It would feel like rain when it hit us. Not like getting hit by a shotgun pellet at muzzle velocity.

I think if a person is hurt by a bullet, that bullet had to be fired at a very low angle. I would guess that a bullet dropped from a plane would just bounce off anything except a piece of glass. And a bullet fired up, will have the same effect.

[Llewlladdwr]

57. I'm having trouble with the physics of this...

First of all, let me say that it's a terrible tragedy that a 4 year old child was killed. Secondly, I do not condone firing a gun into the air for celebratory purposes.

But I'm having trouble accepting that a bullet fired into the air would still be able to pierce a roof and kill someone while falling back to earth.

Does anyone know the physical layout of the area? Is it possible that the shot was fired AT the church from a higher elevation? That seems the only way this scenario makes sense to me.

[Codeine]

59. If fired at a low angle

it will still be on a curved ballistic path - moving forward with the energy imparted fom the firing - and in possession of a fair amount of its kinetic energy when it comes to earth. Fired straight up it will only come down with the energy imparted by gravity, which is to say not much.

[Llewlladdwr]

60. But fired at a low angle...

doesn't it seem unlikely the bullet would end up headed for the floor rather than high up on a wall?

Like I said, the physics isn't making sense. Of course, I also have no idea of what the church in question looks like. Might be an a-frame building where the roof reaches almost to the ground. It's just that something here isn't adding up.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking.

[Codeine]

61. Depends.

A low-trajectory bullet penetrates the roof near one end of a building, continues the downward path (now robbed of a fair amount of its KE from punching through shingles and plywood) across the building and hits somebody at the opposite end in a soft and vulnerable area (throat, eye, carotid, whatever).

One of those bazillion-to-one shots, but possible I suppose. :shrug:

[Llewlladdwr]

62. Found a picture...

of what I believe to be the interior of the church:

http://www.covingtoncogop.org/images/index_37_2_1.bmp


I really don't have anything to add. Just an uneasy feeling about the 'official' story. But we all have those occasionally I suppose.

[proud2BlibKansan]

73. I don't understand your point

Is that church bullet proof?

[RedCloud]

87. keep talking! Hopefully you wil be preaching to the choir on this one!

[RedCloud]

86. This is a very valid point and was on Mythbusters as well.

The roof should have taken all the force out of the bullet.

Sniper?

[Blue Diadem]

52. How awful! I wish people would stop shooting in the air.

It's really sad that you can't even be safe in church.

A similar situation happened in Houston. Thank goodness no one was hit or died in that one. I saw it on the news last night. The 45 cal bullet went through their window, through the side of the fridge and into their freezer compartment.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7198115

[hayu_lol]

58. When I came here to Klamath Falls, OR some 20 years ago...

almost everyone came out of their homes at midnight and fired shotguns into the air. This year, someone had some M-80s two or three blocks away, but no other sounds were heard.

Quite a change in an isolated community where hunting is one of the favorite pastimes(along with fishing).

[BreweryYardRat]

69. Because God forbid people should buy blank cartridges.

Shooting just to hear the noise and watch the flash is acceptable...if you buy some damn blanks. One of the cardinal gun rules is that you don't shoot live rounds unless you know what's behind the target. Some macho jackass violated this rule, and now this kid's dead.

Agreed that the physics of this seem a little off, but kids have soft skulls -- that might be why it killed him.

[bigtree]

71. some towns

. . . folks will tell you to get away from the windows at midnight on NYE because of the tradition of shooting guns off.

[Initech]

77. Praise the lord and pass the ammo.

[RedCloud]

88. All in God's miracle plan, eh?

[The Midway Rebel]

79. The idiots in my neck of the woods go crazy on NYE!

Semi-auto, illegal fireworks, automatic fire, pipe bombs, guns of all caliber. A few idiots nearby fire tracer rounds into the air. Standing on my back porch and witnessing the barrage of fire, act of lunacy and great waste of money requires a stunt of courage.

I think a hot 7.62 round falling from the sky would hurt your skull pretty damn bad even if it were propelled only by gravity.