Thursday, April 24, 2014

Virginia 7-Year-old Dead - Advice to Gun Owners Follows

Local news reports
Franklin County Sheriff’s Office officials said Tuesday that the death of the 7-year-old boy in Burnt Chimney is being treated as an accidental shooting. The investigation, according to Capt. Mark Torbert, is focused on determining how the boys got their hands on the weapons.
Torbert said the brothers had gone to visit a neighbor. As the investigation stands, it appears the boys obtained guns, and both were handling them inside the neighbor’s home when the 12-year-old fired a .45-caliber handgun. The bullet struck the 7-year-old, and the neighbor, the only adult in the house, called 911.
Deputies arrived at 11:47 a.m., the sheriff’s office has said, and found the boy dead. Lt. Phillip Young said the boy was killed instantly.
No charges have been filed in the incident as of yet, and a search warrant related to the shooting is sealed, but Torbert said investigators have zeroed in on the “circumstances leading up to the children having access to firearms.”
The shooting, Torbert said, is a wake-up call to anyone storing guns near children.
“We need to begin the conversation in our community about gun safety,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with guns. Adults just need to ensure that children don’t have access to firearms.”
At the most basic level, he said, gun locks should be obtained for any weapon. They are readily available, and several groups — including the sheriff’s office — will supply them for free.
Other precautions are also advisable, Torbert said, like storing guns in a location children cannot reach.

And at an appropriate age, he said, parents should talk to children about gun safety and what to do if they encounter a gun or are handling one.

3 comments:

  1. "At the most basic level, he said, gun locks should be obtained for any weapon. They are readily available, and several groups — including the sheriff’s office — will supply them for free."

    While I've always paid my own way in the area of firearm security, this statement is pretty true nationwide. There's really no excuse not to have a lock of some sort on a firearm. That being said, if you keep a loaded firearm in the house, using a trigger lock on it is a BIG no-no. At that point you need to spring for a small gun vault, like the one that set me back a whole fifty bucks.

    "And at an appropriate age, he said, parents should talk to children about gun safety and what to do if they encounter a gun or are handling one."

    Note above, there is nothing wrong with guns, and also nothing wrong with teaching kids to shoot at an appropriate age. But it needs to be supervised, at all times.

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  2. What's an appropriate age?

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  3. Kellermann was right. If there is a gun in the house, there is a much higher likelihood of a homicide occurring. Only a gunwack would deny this obvious truth.

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