OT/ Opinions

retired farmer · May 1, 2013

Just read on the internet news about a little five year old boy shooting and killing his two year old sister in Kentucky with a childs .22 rifle that his dad had bought for him from Crickett Firearms, didn't know it was loaded. I went to the Crickett web site. Sent a cold chill down my back from looking at all the little children playing with real firearms from that company. I am all for having guns and bullets but you need to be at an age of responsibility before you should be allowed to have them. My dad had loaded guns in a corner pantry closet when I was little. He told me to never get closer than two feet from them or I would be in Serious trouble. I was nine years old before I got a BB gun and he instilled a lot of gun safety in me in the meantime. I feel sorry for the family of the little girl but the dad should never have bought the gun in the first place for his little boy. Thoughts on this subject?

sd pete · May 1, 2013

I am pro 2nd amendment. A 5 year old is way too
young to have access to a firearm.

641Dave · May 1, 2013

I agree and even at that, you don't just go by age but by maturity level. I know 17 year olds that I wouldn't trust with a loaded bb gun.

dr sportster · May 1, 2013

It is not mentally ill that will kill the second ammendment it is idiots. This will get poofed anyhow ! Another guy was shot by his two year old an on and on and so forth.You store 'em loaded you get what comes with that. Just my 2 cents .

Jack in Colo · May 1, 2013

My dad bought me my first 22 for my 7th birthday but I wasn't allowed to get it out unless he was right there with me, he also kept the ammo for all the guns in a cabinet away from the guns. We were taught at an early age about gun safety and never questioned it. When it comes to guns and kids even if it's just a BB gun it all comes down to the parents and how activities with guns are supervised. My Dad would never hand a gun to anyone especially a child without checking first to see if it was loaded and I was never allowed to fire a round unless Dad was right next to me.

rrlund · May 1, 2013

Agreed.

Mike (WA) · May 1, 2013

5 year old with a loaded .22? You've gotta be kidding. I have a real nice .22 I got in 1958, when I was 10. Going to give it to a grandson, and told his dad to let me know which birthday. He said not yet, maybe when he's 9 or 10.

David G · May 1, 2013

That is careless parenting.

The guns should have been secured from children unless adult is supervising. I think 5 is too young even for that, things can happen in a hurry.

dhermesc · May 1, 2013

There is more to this story than just leaving the gun out. They left it out loaded and cocked.

I have one that I taught my children to shoot with. At age 5 they could not cock the rifle - that requires a considerable amount of finger strength that a 5 year old does not have.

Cricket makes a fine product and I'm happy to own one of their rifles. I'm sorry these people were allowed to breed and raise a child that will always know he killed his baby sister.

DENNIS MIN · May 1, 2013

dr sportster,

A simple rule of unloaded weapons for every circumstance does not fit well.

What good is a handgun if you got to retrieve it from it"s locked cabinet, undo it"s trigger lock, load ammo into the clip, then prepare yourself for an intruder that may not have the same intentions as you...?

Not saying 5 is appropriate, but a blanket statement of insinuated irresponsibility due to a loaded firearm is ill-fitted.

Not starting an argument either, but we are a significant distance from any officials" arrival time.

D.

JRSutton · May 1, 2013

Splitting hairs, but no kid is ever too young to OWN a gun. Let a 2 year old OWN it - who cares.

"owning" it is just a state of mind that has NOTHING to do with using it safely.

I haven't read the story in full detail, but sounds like it's really sensationalizing the point that the gun was purchased for a 6 year old.

I say there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But there's EVERYTHING wrong with leaving a loaded gun in the open, in a house with kids of ANY age. THAT's the real story here.

If you buy a 6 year old a gun, it's up to you to show them how to handle it safely.

And for a 6 year old, that includes letting them know that 6 year olds have to ask dad to unlock the gun cabinet, and 6 year olds don't get to even hold a gun without their dad 1 foot away from their side.

The only thing that changes with age is that 1 foot distance - you can add a foot each year, as they progress and prove themselves.

S2710 · May 1, 2013

I have no problem with any parent buying a small child any gun, but the parent should put down some very strict rules. That said the boy is going to be punished the rest of his life every day when he wakes up. The father should be made to enroll in every hunters safety course that is offered in his home area. If he misses one class he should have to spend one month at hard labor. If he does not go to the class at all 10 years of hard labor. He should have to go to the classes for 10 years.

Bob

old-9 · May 1, 2013

I remember "my" first .22 and going squirrel hunting with my dad. I only got one bullet at a time. Dad was never far from where I was. When I went to a .410 I was in heaven, however still only one shell at a time (and dad was always close). I don't rember how old I was.
good days, joe

Texasmark1 · May 1, 2013

In TX. it's a misdemeanor to have a loaded firearm where a child
can access it. On this event, the state would probably go for a long
prison sentence but would be a peculiar case with the child being
so young. Probably would assign guilt to the parent and have
him/them do some time.

I still have the .410 my dad bought me when I was a young teen.

Mark

Greg K · May 1, 2013

Yep that was careless of the parents. Now all of them have to live with that for the rest of their lives. I am teaching my boys to shoot a BB gun, but with supervision. I would never give a 5 year old a loaded rifle, but that is my OPINION. As far as keeping guns loaded, if I wanted a club I would have bought a baseball bat. It seems that more people are accidently shot with "unloaded" guns, which is why they are to always be treated as if they are loaded, and if they are treated that way there is no sense in keeping them unloaded.

Bret4207 · May 2, 2013

(quoted from post at 16:03:26 05/01/13) Splitting hairs, but no kid is ever too young to OWN a gun. Let a 2 year old OWN it - who cares.

"owning" it is just a state of mind that has NOTHING to do with using it safely.

I haven't read the story in full detail, but sounds like it's really sensationalizing the point that the gun was purchased for a 6 year old.

I say there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But there's EVERYTHING wrong with leaving a loaded gun in the open, in a house with kids of ANY age. THAT's the real story here.

If you buy a 6 year old a gun, it's up to you to show them how to handle it safely.

And for a 6 year old, that includes letting them know that 6 year olds have to ask dad to unlock the gun cabinet, and 6 year olds don't get to even hold a gun without their dad 1 foot away from their side.

The only thing that changes with age is that 1 foot distance - you can add a foot each year, as they progress and prove themselves.

Well said, It's not the gun, it's the irresponsible parent that killed that little girl. And the Cricket site doesn't show kids "playing" with guns. That's a twisted way to put things to fit your agenda.

Personal responsibility, that's the answer to 99% of our countries issues.

Mashbox · May 2, 2013

I purchased a Marlin single shot .22 rifle for my son and gave it to him on his 6th birthday, along with a 500 round box of ammo. My wife was not happy at all. I explained to her I was not handing him the rifle and a pocketful of shells and telling him to go outside and play in the yard with it.

The rifle would stay locked up in my gun safe. If he wanted to shoot, I went out with him and stayed with him at all times. Taught him firearm safety from a young age, and it had stuck with him. He is 17 years old now and the rifle still resides in my gun safe. I have no fear of him taking it out and going squirrel hunting, because I know he will be safe.

As parents we have to show common sense.

krm · May 2, 2013

You can say all you want about people killing people not guns but if that gun had not been there the young girl would still be alive today.

Mashbox · May 2, 2013

But the gun did not cause this all by itself, sadly the 5 year old handling the gun caused this terrible event. Instead of screaming that guns should be banned, how about these people using this energy to promote gun safety?

W_B · May 2, 2013

(quoted from post at 15:32:01 05/02/13) You can say all you want about people killing people not guns but if that gun had not been there the young girl would still be alive today.

If that gun had been secured and/or the boy was taught proper handling and/or the kids were supervised properly, that little girl would be alive today. Lots of things went wrong there. It still took a little people finger to pull that trigger.

teddy52food · May 2, 2013

Don't blame the kid or the gun. Blame the parents.

fixerupper · May 2, 2013

I don't know the circumstances so I won't point any fingers. The parents are going through the horrible loss of a child. But the laws won't consider that as being enough punishment. The parents will be brought up on some kind of charges and used as the 'whipping boy' for all the public to see. I hope they have a lot of supportive friends because once the child abuse laws, or whatever they are called, kick in, the adults are considered guilty, never to be found innocent. Jim

Bret4207 · May 3, 2013

(quoted from post at 07:32:01 05/02/13) You can say all you want about people killing people not guns but if that gun had not been there the young girl would still be alive today.

And that kid might have walked out the door and been hit by a car piloted by a drunk 2 minutes later if the gun hadn't been there. Then the fault of deaths from car accidents is cars, from electrocution from electricity, from drowning from water, from heart disease from food/DNA/etc., from HIV/AIDS from ga y se x/drug use, from lung cancer from smoking, from falls int he home from ladders. You don't like guns, fine, that's your choice. There's lots of stuff I don't like but I don't blame an inanimate object for the death of a person when the fault obviously lays with the irresponsible person that was responsible for the object in the first place.

People are always willing to impose limits on other people as long as it doesn't affect themselves. Then they whine like a 3 year old when their turn int he barrel comes along.

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