Accidents happen, but this "father" needs to man up

[nogods]

A 9-year-old finds a loaded .22 in his father's bedroom drawer and then unintentionally shoots an 11-year-old friend. Sounds like the kid will be OK, although he is in intensive care.

I would generally think that the threat of removing the children from the home if the guns were not removed is a bit much, but then the father blames his "older son" for the father's failure to secure the father's handgun:

"My older son left it loaded. We'd just got back from shooting a couple of days before. It's that simple. It was a tragedy."

No, you didn't check your gun that was in your bedroom drawer.

And just how old is this "older son" who you have made responsible for securing your firearms?

What next, parents blaming kids for their auto accidents and Oxycodone addictions?

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[BC1]

A 9-year-old finds a loaded .22 in his father's bedroom drawer and then unintentionally shoots an 11-year-old friend. Sounds like the kid will be OK, although he is in intensive care.

I would generally think that the threat of removing the children from the home if the guns were not removed is a bit much, but then the father blames his "older son" for the father's failure to secure the father's handgun:

"My older son left it loaded. We'd just got back from shooting a couple of days before. It's that simple. It was a tragedy."

No, you didn't check your gun that was in your bedroom drawer.

And just how old is this "older son" who you have made responsible for securing your firearms?

What next, parents blaming kids for their auto accidents and Oxycodone addictions?

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I would charge the father with criminal negligence.

 

[tattedupboy]

Removing the children if the guns aren't removed is exactly what should happen. If he isn't responsible enough to ensure that his guns are safely stored and secured, then yes, it should be either the kids or the guns. He's just lucky the other boy didn't die.

 

[nogods]

An update on the story states that the older brother is 15-years old, the gun belonged to the father, and the gun was stored in the bedroom drawer of the 15-year old.

Bizarre thinking on the part of this father.

 

[roguejesse]

If you have kids, you need to "Gun-Proof" your kids. The best way is though educating them. NRA has the Eddie Eagle program. Teach them that the gun is not a toy, and what to do when they find one. Eliminate their curiosity, telling them not to touch it will only make them curious and they will find the firearm no matter where you hide it. It is never too early to teach your children gun safety rules.

There is no need to have the .22 loaded in a drawer, it's a poor choice for a home defense weapon. That gun should of been in a gun safe; never liked the gun locks.

 

[retirednak]

I agree the father should answer to charges of some kind,any time a kid is injured with a firearm,charges should be looked at. How ever, I do have mixed emotions. I always left my firearms loaded around the home after my 3 kids(2 girls,1 boy) reached the age 6 or so. (might have been a bit older) I drilled gun safety into my kids heads and they handled my firearms so much that they no longer had the curiosity factor. We shot the firearms weekly and by the time they reached 11 or 12 they shot as well as most adults. They could break down and clean any firearm we had. I hid my handguns around the house,I'm sure they knew where they were at any given time. Any time we had company with kids,I always remove the guns from curious kids. I'm sure I'll be flamed for this.

 

[Doc Mustang]

Removing the children if the guns aren't removed is exactly what should happen. If he isn't responsible enough to ensure that his guns are safely stored and secured, then yes, it should be either the kids or the guns. He's just lucky the other boy didn't die.

This is a bit extreme. He has had a hell of a wake up call, now is the time for education not radical action. There are times when a persons rights need to be taken away but this is not one of them. Educating him on taking responsibility (starting with not blaming his other minor son for his own negligence) would be a first step. Manditory firearms safety courses for himself and his 15 year old would be a start. In addition to a fine and probation. At the very least a substantial civil penalty should be awarded to the victims family.

Clearly if this results in a felony conviction then you could talk of taking away his rights. But thus far nothing warrents taking away his children or his guns

I agree the father should answer to charges of some kind,any time a kid is injured with a firearm,charges should be looked at. How ever, I do have mixed emotions. I always left my firearms loaded around the home after my 3 kids(2 girls,1 boy) reached the age 6 or so. (might have been a bit older) I drilled gun safety into my kids heads and they handled my firearms so much that they no longer had the curiosity factor. We shot the firearms weekly and by the time they reached 11 or 12 they shot as well as most adults. They could break down and clean any firearm we had. I hid my handguns around the house,I'm sure they knew where they were at any given time. Any time we had company with kids,I always remove the guns from curious kids. I'm sure I'll be flamed for this.

Good on you for training your own children. However, If your children are anything like mine they have freinds over. I know you addressed this but an important concept to stress here is threat level. If your home was under continuous real threat of invasion such that you felt the need to stash guns around the house why not carry a handgun on your person at all times? Carrying allows you to always know where the weapon is and that it is not in the hands of your kid or your kids curious freinds. Home defense shotguns or other long guns could be kept in rapid access storage devices that would provide some degree of security. Additionally steps should be taken to mitigate the threat. Keeping bushes trimmed away from windows. Strong, secure entry points, motion detetion lighting, an alarm system, and possibly a dog can go a long way toward threat mitigation and management. Also situations that would make you a target such as storing large sums of cash, or precious metals in your home should be eliminated. All of therse are part of an integrated approach to security.

Clearly it is up to you the individual to make a threat assessment, make decisions to mitigate the threat, practice good risk management in developing a threat managment plan. Stashing unsecured loaded firearms around the house is can be more of a risk than your threat of being targeted for home invasion.

 

[Edsworld]

Education,Education,Education,Education,Education.

And yes a 15yr old should be responsible enough. Quit babying your kids. By the age of 16 you should be moved out and taking care of yourself, If not then the parents aren't doing their job!

 

[nogods]

Education,Education,Education,Education,Education.

And yes a 15yr old should be responsible enough. Quit babying your kids. By the age of 16 you should be moved out and taking care of yourself, If not then the parents aren't doing their job!

Perhaps you haven't heard of the science of brain development and hormones.

While there may be a 15-year-old or two in the world with a fully matured brain, the great majority are just entering the "hey, watch what I can do" age at that point in their lives.

UCLA researchers compared MRI scans of young adults, 23-30, with those of teens, 12-16. They looked for signs of myelin, which would imply more mature, efficient connections, within gray matter.

As expected, areas of the frontal lobe showed the largest differences between young adults and teens. This increased myelination in the adult frontal cortex likely relates to the maturation of cognitive processing and other "executive" functions.

Parietal and temporal areas mediating spatial, sensory, auditory and language functions appeared largely mature in the teen brain. The observed late maturation of the frontal lobe conspicuously coincides with the typical age-of-onset of schizophrenia—late teens, early twenties—which, as noted earlier, is characterized by impaired "executive" functioning.

Sowell ER, Thompson PM, Holmes CJ, et al. In vivo evidence for post-adolescent brain maturation in frontal and striatal regions. Nature Neuroscience, 1999; 2(10): 859-61.

Or in more layman's terms, as explained by Neurologist Francis Jensen:

Jensen says scientists used to think human brain development was pretty complete by age 10. Or as she puts it, that "a teenage brain is just an adult brain with fewer miles on it."

But it's not. To begin with, she says, a crucial part of the brain — the frontal lobes — are not fully connected. Really.

"It's the part of the brain that says: 'Is this a good idea? What is the consequence of this action?' " Jensen says. "It's not that they don't have a frontal lobe. And they can use it. But they're going to access it more slowly."

That's because the nerve cells that connect teenagers' frontal lobes with the rest of their brains are sluggish. Teenagers don't have as much of the fatty coating called myelin, or "white matter," that adults have in this area.

Think of it as insulation on an electrical wire. Nerves need myelin for nerve signals to flow freely. Spotty or thin myelin leads to inefficient communication between one part of the brain and another.

 

[Kasper]

Removing the children if the guns aren't removed is exactly what should happen. If he isn't responsible enough to ensure that his guns are safely stored and secured, then yes, it should be either the kids or the guns. He's just lucky the other boy didn't die.

Well I will be the one to say it then,If the kid is not smart enough to follow the directions of his father and the request of the older brother about not touching the older brother's things he needs to receive an ass whooping for not listening to his brother request and his father's direction of if it don't belong to you don't touch it.

While it is easier to blame the parent, the 9 year old kid should hold some responsibly for his actions. when I was 8 I had a .22lr rifle and I knew not to point it at people or the farm animals, squirrels out in the fields and snakes under the bridge laying on logs waiting for frogs was fair game. I agree that the father should have educated his sons better on firearm safety but to take away his right to own a firearm is going to far in my opinion. The gun belongs to his 15 year old son so that gun was not the fathers. The father bought it for his son so it belongs to the son not him and it is the sons responsibly to make sure it is stored safety away.

 

[Edsworld]

Perhaps you haven't heard of the science of brain development and hormones.

While there may be a 15-year-old or two in the world with a fully matured brain, the great majority are just entering the "hey, watch what I can do" age at that point in their lives.


Sowell ER, Thompson PM, Holmes CJ, et al. In vivo evidence for post-adolescent brain maturation in frontal and striatal regions. Nature Neuroscience, 1999; 2(10): 859-61.

Or in more layman's terms, as explained by Neurologist Francis Jensen:

It is the way they are raised that retards the brain. You treat a person like a 2yr and that is the way they will act and think, it doesn't matter what their actual ages is.

 

[Doc Mustang]

It is the way they are raised that retards the brain. You treat a person like a 2yr and that is the way they will act and think, it doesn't matter what their actual ages is.

Please cite your source.

 

[nogods]

It is the way they are raised that retards the brain. You treat a person like a 2yr and that is the way they will act and think, it doesn't matter what their actual ages is.

So all that scientific stuff is a bunch of hooey?

A parent who doesn't understand childhood development is really nothing but a child who wears adult sized clothing.

 

[Hamilton Felix]

Originally Posted by Edsworld
It is the way they are raised that retards the brain. You treat a person like a 2yr and that is the way they will act and think, it doesn't matter what their actual ages is.

Please cite your source.

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Source? Most of us who have been around for a few decades have watched it, had it proven to us many times. Coddle them, give them no reponsibility, protect them from the consequences of their own stupidity, and they'll remain small (and worthless) children forever.

Heinlein said "Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy." Too bad Benjamin Spock wasn't 1/10 as wise as Heinlein.

BTW, this story wasn't as bad as a local one about 20 years ago: Friends of ours, she was our Lamaze coach, had two kids. One of 'em got off the bus at his friend's house, said goodbye then headed across the yard and scrambled over the fence to go to his house. Neighbor boy and buddy had gone into his house, picked up a .30-30 left near the living room window, pulled down on his little friend through the window as the little guy went over the fence - and fired. My friends lived almost next to the hospital, but Caleb did not survive. I do not know what befell that "father" who both failed to train his son and left a loaded and ready .30-30 in the front room.

 

[Edsworld]

Please cite your source.

ME. Look at the kids today and look at the kids of the same age 100yrs ago, or even 30 yrs ago. History speaks for it's self.

Parents are always looking for something or someone to blame for there mistakes, If their kids don't turn out right.

 

[Doc Mustang]

One of the many things you learn when studying pediatrics is that human development proceeds according to a set of distinct milestones. Those milestones occur on a relatively predictable timeline and statistically are distributed on the normal curve. What this means is that while I can marginally speed up development of my child It becomes increasingly difficult to obtain results the further one attempts to deviate from the mean. All the hard work in the world, standing my infant son up, holding his hands as he "walks" across the room, doing exercises, showing him walking videos will not make my son walk at 5 months old. I MIGHT be able to get him walking at 10 months, more likely at 11 since most children begin walking at a year plus or minus 2 months or so. The point being that you can speed up development slightly but you cannot move the milestones too far.

I have not specifically looked at the data but I would expect that frontal lobe development in teenagers would follow a similar pattern. The only question to be resolved is how wide the bell curve is for this developmental milestone. It may be wide, encompassing 2-3 years on either side of the mean. It may be quite narrow. The point being that we do not know.

There is an important concept in medicine summed up in the phrase "Anecdote is not antidote" meaning just because uncle Fred "cured" his prostate cancer with wheat grass enemas does not mean that everyone with prostate cancer should receive wheat grass.

To expand this to our current debate, yes we all know or have heard of babies that walked at 8 months and teenagers who were completely mature and responsible at 16. However, personal experience cannot be used in isolation from empirical data. That 16 year old may be sitting in the very narrow "tail" of a bell curve. Even if several teens in one geographic area or one family show maturity at that age that does not necessarily mean that that experience or that method can be expanded to the great teemimg mass of humanity. There are a nearly limitless number of variables both of nature and nurture that could contribute to the observed result.

 

[FN1910]

I don't remember but I was told by many relatives that I was walking at 7 months. I blame that for making me bowlegged as my legs weren't strong enough to hold me up. :laugh: But I agree with Doc that you can move some of the milestones and anything well different of that is just an abnormailty. My IQ is well into genuis level but I do have some learning disabilities. The early responses to certain things are understood but some of my development was late. I am a firm believer in that study about good judgemnet doesn't physically develop until age 25 or so and now as a senior citizen can truly recognize it.

There is an earlier post about teaching children about firearms and helping them to be over their curiosity. That is about as good as you can do but you still need to be careful with them. The ones that claim they have taught their 3 year old not to touch a firearm so they don't have to worry about it are taking a big chance. You can teach a 3, 4, 5, 6......19, 20, 21 year old all kinds of things but you still can't be sure that they will obey it when tempted under the right circumstances. As a teenager I was probably much more "mature" than a lot of my friends in many ways and didn't do a lot of the dumb things that they did. However I still did my share and some of it was not because I did not know better, I just did it. leasantry:

 

[nogods]

Well I will be the one to say it then,If the kid is not smart enough to follow the directions of his father and the request of the older brother about not touching the older brother's things he needs to receive an ass whooping for not listening to his brother request and his father's direction of if it don't belong to you don't touch it.

I raised 4 children. I never ran out of non-violent ways to discipline them. If you can't out think a kid you probably shouldn't have any.

 

[FN1910]

I raised 4 children. I never ran out of non-violent ways to discipline them. If you can't out think a kid you probably shouldn't have any.

I agree totally. Non-violent methods do not necessarily eliminate all types of physical methods such as spankings. Every now and then I would have to pop the diaper of my oldest daughter. It ws long ago but I do remember her pitching a fit about something and I would "pop" her diaper. I doubt that she could hardly feel it but the noise and shock would make her all of a sudden stop and look around at me. Punishment should never be administered in an angry or vengeful way. That is where the abuse starts and if you calm down before punishing your child you probably will find that beating the **** out of him doesn't do a lot of good, in fact will probably make things worse.

{down from my soapbox}

 

[retirednak]

Quote: why not carry a handgun on your person at all times? Carrying allows you to always know where the weapon is and that it is not in the hands of your kid.

I still carry a gun on my hip at all times. But my wife wouldn't walk around with a gun on her hip. All though we now live in a safer neighborhood. All long guns were locked up along with the handguns that were not stashed. As I mentioned,I trained the curiosity out of my kids and they had enough respect for me and the firearms that if one was found an adult would have been told. Besides my kids were rarely indoors except to sleep. Couldn't hardly get them to even watch TV,they would rather play in the woods,ride their ATV-snowmachines ect..
But I do understand where your coming from. What worked at my home probably wouldn't work in 99.9% at other folks homes.