All over the interwebs floats the story of a 5 year old boy in Kentucky who shot his sister and killed her. The story isn’t much different from one source to the next, and sadly neither is the reaction. I’m finding the issue with this situation to be…

“We need to regulate how guns are stored.”

“Who gives a 5 year old a gun for their birthday.”

“How can a 5 year old own a gun?”

Do you see what’s bothering me about these reactions? I am a big supporter of firearms, my daughters share the same type of gun this child was given. The oldest received it as a Yule gift, so the fact that this negligent homicide (I’m not calling this an accident and I’ll explain why..) even occurred infuriates me, almost as much as the reactions to it. This post appears entirely focused on guns but my true issue is this push the blame, it’s not my fault, irresponsible, victim mentality that so many have adopted. I’m sure most would say that the parents are of course at fault but something has to be done to keep it from happening again. You cannot regulate stupidity out of existence.

First off the cricket is a single shot bolt action .22 which means (incase it needs clarification) it holds ONE, 1, uno rounds. How a parent could forget that it was loaded is mind boggling. This child sized firearm also comes with a keyed lock that holds the bolt open, you cannot fire a round if it is locked. Finally and most importantly, it was left sitting within reach of a child, a loaded weapon. Three terrible choices and this family has lost a child. To me this is not an accident, it was severe negligence that resulted in death. Not that it really changes anything but based on the previous issues I suspect this little boy was also never given proper, thorough instruction in firearm safety.

Why does the focus seem to be on the gun? We need to regulate how guns are stored, and this and that and we ignore that these parents SCREWED UP. Can we regulate common sense? Can we regulate some sort of responsibility? The investigators, the parents are calling this an accident but it’s not. They allowed this to happen, by being careless. Certainly if the rifle wasn’t in the house it wouldn’t have happened but I really can’t feel certain that some other tragedy wouldn’t have befallen these children with parents who lack foresight. Who lack common sense to such an extreme.

I really don’t know what may or may not have happened. What I do know is this increasing trend that people have to blame everything but THEMSELVES, is disturbing. This carries over into so many things-school grades, the size soft drink you can purchase, etc. When did we stop teaching our children that they need to use the gray matter in their skull? I’ve become very pessimistic about humanity, and really don’t think it’s possible to NOT know how to teach your kids better than yourself. Unless you live under a rock, then people are exposed to ideas to information. Most choose not to use it because it requires effort. It’s easier to be lazy and assume ‘it won’t happen to you’. The family this happened to likely had access to the internet, and television and have heard the stories of negligence and yet made no effort to ensure it didn’t happen to them.

“What will it take for gun owners to be responsible”-well MOST are. Most pit bull owners train their dogs properly but we don’t hear about them, we hear about attacks. We don’t hear about the responsible owners because it doesn’t sell, no sensationalism to get people riled up but there are many stories out there of the responsible owners if you dig for them.