Friday, February 4, 2011

Parenting Fail, Policing Fail

The Green Bay Press Gazette has a story of a nine year old girl who was accidentally shot with her father's 9 mm.  Fortunately, the girl will survive, but there are some other serious issues with this story:

According to police, the girl and her brother were alone at their home in the 900 block of Elmore Street on Thursday night when they heard their dog barking, he said. The children feared an intruder was outside and the girl went to get the gun from her dad’s bedroom. When she tried to hand it to her brother, it accidentally fired and a bullet entered her chest and exited behind her right shoulder, Runge said. 
Police were unsure Friday afternoon what time the shooting occurred the night before. They were continuing to interview family members.

The following morning, the father drove both children to school.  The injury wasn't discovered until the girl arrived at school and teachers noticed that she was pale and shaking.


The story notes that the Green Bay Police are looking into charging the father for not securing the gun.


WTF?!?!


The father leave a ten year old and a nine year old home alone.  This might be or might not be acceptable in the eyes of some people, but the father only exasperated the problem by leaving the unsecured handgun with them.  But I think the thing that really gets to me is that the father come home and don't even take the girl to the freaking hospital!


So, where is the mother? She's not mentioned in the story, so we don't know if she is still in the picture or not.
But even then, the father should be charged not only with the unsecured weapon charge, but also child neglect and reckless endangerment.


And why were the cops not even considering that.  In Milwaukee, if this had happened, the guy would have been in the slammer immediately and charged with a lot more than I had listed.  


Of course, I will be expecting the usual gun nuts to explain why the father should be lauded and how this shows we need gun stores across the street from every school.  And then they wonder why this kind of crap keeps happening.

3 comments:

  1. This is why I believe our public elementary schools should teach gun safety classes, because we cannot assume that parents will do so (too many assume their kids will never find their guns). Even if the gun owners teach their own children, what about their children's friends? We could do something to improve children's safety without debating the contentious political issue of gun control.

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  2. I am quite pro 2nd Amendment, but why the f**k was the weapon not locked up. Freedom requires a certain amount of responsibility. No adult around, guns locked up. How the hell didn't he notice the injury, or the smell of a weapon having been fired, or maybe, I don't know, a BULLET HOLE SOMEPLACE?!

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  3. "we need gun stores across the street from every school."

    Please provide proof of anyone saying this, you know, ever.

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