This story is nauseating.
It's about a tragedy that never should have happened. It was entirely preventable.
No 3-year-old should have access to a gun, a loaded gun, to use as a toy.
From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
A 6-year-old boy is in stable condition today after being shot by a 3-year-old girl in a home on the city's northwest side last night, according to Milwaukee police.
Officers arrested a 32-year-old man in questioning how the young girl obtained the gun before the shooting took place about 10 p.m. in the 3000 block of N. Teutonia Ave.
Police said the girl discovered the loaded .32-caliber handgun behind a stove, where the 32-year-old man had stored it. She fired a single shot that hit the 6-year-old boy in the abdomen, said police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.
I know everyone has already asked this question, but I'll ask it again:
Who "stores" a loaded gun behind a stove?
That is absolutely insane.
So much for childproofing a house!
Schwartz said the boy lived in the home, and that his mother was babysitting for the 3-year-old girl. The mother said she was out for a walk at the time of the shooting, Schwartz said.
This has also been asked, but what sort of babysitter, what sort of mother takes a walk while caring for at least three kids 6-years-old and younger?
This woman had to know that there was a gun in the kitchen, assuming she cooks and uses the stove and cleans her home.
Moreover, who leaves such young children to go out for a walk?
This mother/babysitter is beyond negligent.
Other adults in the house, except for the gun's owner, fled after they heard the shot, Schwartz said.
The 3-year-old girl's mother showed up later at the hospital where the boy was taken, Schwartz said.
Very nice.
A child is shot and other adults in the house flee. Do they help the seriously wounded little boy?
No. They run away.
You don't run away unless you have a reason. No doubt, the fleeing adults are cowardly thugs, the scum of Milwaukee.
The 32-year-old man has a prior felony conviction and could face charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm in addition to possible charges related to leaving the gun unsecured where a child could get it.
According to FOX6, the 32-year-old man has been convicted of at least two cocaine charges since 1998.
What a role model for the children!
There are so many, many things wrong here.
Police Chief Nan Hegerty and Mayor Tom Barrett both spoke out about the case, as they do whenever there's a shooting bound to disturb the community.
I don't mean the community where the shooting took place. I mean other areas of the city and the metro region, places where people are outraged by the irresponsibility involved in a case like this.
Hegerty and Barrett's comments were reminiscent of what they had to say after the murder of 4-year-old Jasmine Owens -- the shock, anger, outrage stuff.
Hegerty said that she was horrified when she learned about the shooting. I believe her. Any decent person would be horrified.
Barrett released a statement on the incident as well as addressing the media.
He said everyone should be outraged by this.
Everyone should be, but everyone isn't.
He questioned the "moral compass" of the parents.
He spoke of the need for parents to behave responsibly and create a safe environment for their children.
Barrett said that having a loaded gun within reach of a 3-year-old child "defies logic in every measure."
From the clips I heard of the news conference, Barrett struck a different tone from the one he conveyed in this statement.
“It’s despicable. It’s sickening. A 6-year old is lying in a hospital bed right now recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered at the hands of a 3-year old. Why were these kids unattended at 10:00 at night? How did they have access to a gun, an illegal gun?
We are talking about children here; children who are in very real, very immediate danger because of illegal guns. If this doesn’t compel people to open their eyes to the epidemic of violence caused by illegal guns, I don’t know what will.”
Once again, Tom Barrett blames inadequate gun laws.
At least this time, he did put some emphasis on the lack of parental responsibility; but he still highlighted gun laws.
There's another problem with Barrett's statement.
He's pushing for tougher gun laws, but as he says THREE times in his statement, this was a case of violence with an ILLEGAL GUN.
The gun should not have been in that house. It's already against the law. The 32-year-old man broke existing laws.
What does Barrett want? New laws to make ILLEGAL guns extra ILLEGAL?
It's too bad that Barrett didn't hone in on the real problem, the behavior of the adults in the house and the stupid choices that they made.
It's the adults. It's the thug culture. It's not the guns themselves.
The gun didn't load itself. The gun didn't walk behind the stove. The gun didn't ask the 3-year-old to play with it and fire it at a 6-year-old.
There is no way that when my children were that age they would ever have had access to a gun, let alone a loaded gun "stored" behind the stove. Never. Ever.
I would never go out for a walk while babysitting or caring for my own young children, leaving them with an irresponsible thug.
There is something terribly, terribly wrong with these people.
No excuses.
The 3-year-old girl shot the 6-year-old boy because his daddy --scratch that-- the felon "man of the house" illegally possessed a firearm and the children weren't properly supervised.
End of story.
Of course, when such young, innocent children are the victims of gun violence it's particularly upsetting.
It's also upsetting when a teenager victimizes.
Late on Wednesday, a 16-year-old was convicted of "participating in the execution-style slayings of a mother and her two adult sons last fall."
Sammie Smith originally had been charged with three counts of first-degree intentional homicide, but the jury opted for the lesser charge of felony murder for Smith's participation in the Oct. 10 shootings of Christopher B. Durant, 35; Dexter P. Durant, 33; and their mother, Betty Jones, 51, in their home near N. 28th and W. Clarke streets.
Being convicted of all three counts means Smith faces a maximum possible sentence of 123 years in prison and 45 more on extended supervision if given three maximum sentences.
I wonder if Sammie Smith grew up in a home like the one in the 3000 block of N. Teutonia Ave.
__________________________
More details from the Journal Sentinel:
Police said Wednesday that the girl found the loaded .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun behind a stove. The girl took the gun into a bedroom where Tariq [Davis] and another 6-year-old boy were playing, and the weapon went off. The other boy, whose relationship to the victim and the girl was unclear, was not hurt, police said.
The victim's mother, Shaniqua Davis, was baby-sitting the little girl, who is not believed to be related to the family, police said. Shaniqua Davis had taken her 9-month-old daughter along on a walk down the block to talk with her mother - [Roshann] Hill - when the shooting occurred. Davis has another daughter, 12, who was not home at the time, Hill said.
Another daughter. One has to wonder what the 12-year-old was doing. Maybe she was safely at a friend's house and properly supervised by a responsible adult. Maybe she wasn't.
Police said an unknown number of adults inside the home fled after the shooting, though not a 32-year-old man who lived at the address. He was arrested on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and storing a loaded firearm within reach of a child, Schwartz said. He has prior cocaine and battery convictions, according to online court records.
Neighbors and family said Shaniqua Davis moved into the home with her kids three or four months ago. Family members were not familiar with the man who was arrested but believed him to be "the man of the house," said Sabrina Davis, Shaniqua Davis' sister.
Hill said her daughter "just lives with them" and acknowledged that the home was not a good environment for her grandchildren.
"She needs to move somewhere else," Hill said.
What the hell does "just lives with them" mean?
How is it that Shaniqua Davis' family members aren't familiar with "the man of the house"?
The grandmother Roshann Hill knew that her precious grandchildren weren't living in a good environment. And the sister Sabrina Davis claims she didn't know the 32-year-old "man of the house."
What a dysfunctional mess!
But the Journal Sentinel doesn't blame this screwed up bunch of irresponsible people.
Blame inadequate gun laws.
Blame the powerful NRA for lobbying to block legislation.
The Journal Sentinel shamelessly exploits the shooting to advance a political agenda.
Such shootings could be reduced if guns were designed to prevent young children or other unauthorized people from using them, said Stephen Hargarten, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Hargarten said as far back as the 1880s gunmakers had designed guns with safety grips that made it impossible for young children to pull a trigger. Today, some .45-caliber semiautomatics have such features, he said. But most guns do not.
"It ought to be standardized in all guns," Hargarten said. "It would reduce unintentional shooting tragedies."
But to make such guns mandatory would require federal legislation, he said.
He said the situation is similar to air bags and car safety.
Air bags were designed in the 1950s but did not become standard in cars until the 1980s, he said.
"We are in the 1950s for guns," he said.
I support safety measures to prevent tragedies like this. I have no problem with such legislation.
However, I think it does no good to shift the focus from the reckless adults to dwell on guns and gun legislation.
The fact is this shooting would not have happened if the adults were behaving responsibly and respecting the law.
Safety grip legislation wasn't necessary to prevent this shooting.
No federal government involvement was required to spare Tariq Davis.
All he needed was to be surrounded by responsible adults.
The shooting was inexcusable.
It wasn't an accident.
It was the tragic consequence of carelessness.
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