22 February 2009

I hate these stories...

As father to a 9YO, these stories devastate me:

From ABC15
A 9-year-old boy was shot and killed in Florence on Sunday afternoon, and the boy's 2-year-old brother may have pulled the trigger.
Ok, that's the story at this point. Which leaves a lot of questions like "does a 2YO have the strength to lift a gun let alone the finger strength to pull a trigger?" It would help to know what kind of gun was used.

Why does this smell like dad was screwing around cleaning his gun, shot junior, then blamed it on the 2YO? IFF this is the case, I don't know how he can live with himself. I can't imagine enough alcohol BP Meds in the world would drown this memory.

Not many facts yet and the media is notorious for getting things wrong. They also tend to report anything that is given to them as fact without any critical thought (see also the many Brady and BATFE pressers the media runs as stories). So this could be way off...

Florence is a relatively small Arizona town. Wikipedia (consume one large grain o'salt) gives it a 2000 census of just over 17,000. But's the area has boomed in the last decade so that number could easily be double maybe even triple today. It also says it's home to 9 prisons including the largest AZ state prison. So with such a small population and large number of prisons, what are the odds this will involve an "only one" and will quickly be swept under the rug?

No good outcomes here. Instead of mandating guns be sold with a gunlock, they should include a copy of the Four Rules and a a couple stories like this to drive home the point.

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