Four-Year-Old Girl Shoots Herself at Sam's Club

[FCFC]

How are children different now than they were in the 40s and 50s? ...

Got any data for your notion of "from the 40s and 50s of all the deaths caused by the children allowed to carry firearms to school, into the woods, to the range all by themselves....?"

/anecdotal data and nostalgia bias off

To make a blanket statement that children cannot be trusted with _____ when they have, in the past, successfully been trusted with such is a review of the FAILURE OF PARENTING, not of children.

Why can't a child be trusted? It is only due to the failure of a parent.

Only? Both the parenting and the kid's behavior are obvious variables. The child is a willful, thinking creature.

As I said before, above, I thought I was clear, child cognitive and emotional processes simply are not developed enough to consistently make the right decisions, like not shooting humans as was the case I referred to.

I don't trust 10 or 12 year olds with guns. They're not responsible enough for my sensibilities. I'll be happy to take a chance with a properly supervised kid with a gun. No knock on the children. They're still developing.

 

[FCFC]

Still no reporting of any charges against Magistrate Williamson. Looks like a whitewash.


I checked with WJBF TV and they say they they've been calling the Columbia Police Department nearly every day for info since initially reporting the story on June 12.

Capt. Thomas Dodson and his office have ignored the calls.

Stonewall....

Looks like that idiot grandma shooter is going to get off. Pity, if that happens.

 

[Kentak]

ScottsGT,

I think you handled that well and appropriately. Seems like a few on this board have the "Not my kid!" syndrome. Good luck to them. Good parenting, even great parenting, is not a guarantee of good behavior. It certainly increases the chances of avoiding bad things happening. But, it is naive to think it won't or can't happen to *their* kid. Kids are not programable robots, thank goodness. They do have minds, emotions, beliefs, and issues of their own. You do the best you can and trust as much as is prudent based on the trust they have earned and the maturity and judgement they have displayed. Still, no guarantee. Good parent's do have kids that misbehave in school, experiment with drugs, have sex, get pregnant, commit minor crimes, drink, etc. There will be times in a kid's life when the influence of peers is almost sure to be as important, or more so, than that of his parents.

That's reality.

K

 

[ScottsGT]

There will be times in a kid's life when the influence of peers is almost sure to be as important, or more so, than that of his parents.

Understatement of the year!!!! From the time they can figure out what a friend is, till they are grown!

 

[FCFC]

The Magistrate Got Off

Here is a sad example of political pull trumping basic citizen responsibility for clear negligence with a firearm.

Donna Hutto Williamson, a legal firearm owner and carrier in SC, endangered the public, caused a 4-year-old to shoot herself, forced a major retail store to be shut down temporarily, and used up gobs of police and emergency services resources---and suffers no legal consequences for all of that.

She accepted no responsibility for her negligence involving a deadly weapon.

Williamson is a disgusting example of the gun owner and carrier community in the United States.

I fart in her general direction.




No charges for grandmother in accidental shooting
Posted on Tue, Jul. 08, 2008
The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. --Officials say a woman whose 4-year-old granddaughter accidentally shot herself with her grandmother's gun at a Columbia store last month will not be charged in the case.

Columbia Police Department spokesman Brick Lewis said in a news release Tuesday evening that Lexington County prosecutors and Columbia police decided not to charge 47-year-old Donna Hutto Williamson in the case.

The girl was shopping with her grandmother at a Sam's Club on June 10 when she found the weapon in her grandmother's purse and accidentally shot herself in the chest.

The girl was treated and released from a local hospital.

Williamson is a South Carolina magistrate and has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

http://www.charlotte.com/205/story/705025.html

 

[TAB]

Now that just makes me sick.

 

[LAK]

Not good, perhaps avoidable - except most grandmothers are likely to keep a HG in a purse or handbag. And alot of grandmothers mind their grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.

Law of averages; 300m people. Alot of grandmothers, most of whom if armed, likely carry it in the purse. It is going to happen once in awhile.

This granny shouldn't be hung for this - the event itself will have been enough.

 

[HK G3]

I think that this just shows that keeping a gun in a purse is a stupid idea.

A gun in a purse is not secure and on your person. They hammer the "ALWAYS MAINTAIN CONTROL OF YOUR FIREARM" stuff into you at the CCW course, and then they let and even encourage women to carry in a purse? Seems very counter intuitive.

If grandma were carrying IWB, the child would be okay, and she wouldn't have had to sacrifice her personal safety for the safety of the child. Another problem with carry anywhere but on your person is if the attacker decides to immediately go for the purse. If they simply snatch the purse, the CCW winds up on the streets. If they snatch the purse and toss it aside (seeing as most crooks realize that just the purse itself can be swung as a weapon), what then?

At any rate, I'm sure the grandma in this story is going to be haunted by this incident for the rest of her life.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Here is a sad example of political pull trumping basic citizen responsibility for clear negligence with a firearm.

Donna Hutto Williamson, a legal firearm owner and carrier in SC, endangered the public, caused a 4-year-old to shoot herself, forced a major retail store to be shut down temporarily, and used up gobs of police and emergency services resources---and suffers no legal consequences for all of that.

She accepted no responsibility for her negligence involving a deadly weapon.

Williamson is a disgusting example of the gun owner and carrier community in the United States.

I fart in her general direction.

Ah yes, here's yet another horrible situation in which the people who have the facts overrule the legal and moral decisions made by real experts who inhabit Internet gun forums and are not hampered by knowledge or judgment.

Eleventh Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers said not pursuing charges was the right thing to do because there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed. He said he doubted he would have been able to persuade a jury to convict Williamson if the case had gone to trial.

“It was an accident,” Myers said.

...

Williamson has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and presented it after the shooting.

Roughly 27 percent of the state’s magistrates — 85 out of 314 — have such permits, according to information kept by the State Law Enforcement Division.

Many magistrates say they carry the weapons to protect themselves and their families outside the courtroom from disgruntled parties from past court cases.

Myers said Williamson had received a documented death threat shortly before the June 10 incident, which might have been why she was carrying the weapon on that day.

How could the solicitor and the police possibly know more than someone who can produce wind on demand? In the end, it's the wind that counts on the Internet.

I especially appreciate your belief that there's a "basic citizen responsibility for clear negligence with a firearm." A citizen who is required to be negligent with a firearm should be obligated to have that negligence be clear instead of fuzzy.

You must have a special source for your statement that the magistrate "accepted no responsibility for her negligence involving a deadly weapon." The conclusion of the police and the solicitor (who admittedly did not consult the gun forum legal experts) is that they could not prove any negligence.

As for the magistrate's being "a disgusting example of the gun owner and carrier community in the United States," that's what the anti-gun people have been saying for some time only better.

 

[TAB]

So she got a death threat? So have I. So has just about every contractor, lawyer, Accountant, FTB/IRS employee I know.

 

[FCFC]

Not good, perhaps avoidable - except most grandmothers are likely to keep a HG in a purse or handbag. And alot of grandmothers mind their grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.

Law of averages; 300 people. Alot of grandmothers, most of whom if armed, likely carry it in the purse. It is going to happen once in awhile.

How would you feel if some person, say a grandmother, went out to a bar for a little celebration. She gets kinda sloshed..has 7 or 8 drinks...decides it's time to go home. She is driving out of the parking lot and as she is touching up her makeup she kinda swerves onto a sidewalk into some pedestrians. She plows into a 4-year-old girl and the grille of her SUV punctures the little girl's chest. The kid is rushed to the hospital and they manage to patch her up. She'll have some scars for the rest of her life. But she'll live.

What do you think, the grandma's getting soused and swerving into some pedestrians is perhaps avoidable, right? Just because she is a grandma doesn't mean she can't party down once in a while, right?

Law of averages; 300 drinkers. A lot of celebrants might have one or two too many and they'll get behind the wheel to get home. It's going to happen once in a while.

No need to hang the drunken driving grandma, right?

Slips!

 

[ScottsGT]

How would you feel if some person, say a grandmother, went out to a bar for a little celebration. She gets kinda sloshed..has 7 or 8 drinks...decides it's time to go home. She is driving out of the parking lot and as she is touching up her makeup she kinda swerves onto a sidewalk into some pedestrians.

Hey!! This happened in SC too! But it was our highly regarded SC Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean H. Toal. She's bounced of a car or two in her time!
Hell, she was even smart enough to keep going until she got home, fixed herself ANOTHER mixed drink, then called the law to report it. Can't prove she was drinking before she got home now! Ticked for leaving the scene of an accident, that's all.
Gotta love SC

 

[zxcvbob]

(Paraphrasing Mel Brooks just a little) It's good to be a judge.

 

[Old Guy]

The girl was treated and released from a local hospital.

I have looked all over for the facts as to how our little girl is! And seeing the fact that she was treated and RELEASED! tells all, reference the Judge being charged or not.

There is no doubt in my mind that had that bullet killed the 4 year old, charges would have been laid! Treated and released means (to me) very minor damage to that little sweetie pie!

Granny has suffered enough from seeing and hearing that incident to have been devastated, give her a break already.

We have 4 Grand Children, and looked after them for years, since they were tiny baby's, the oldest is now 19, and got himself a job teaching skiing in New Zealand, 4 year olds are in to everything! Granny should have been trained to "Dress armed" which means gun on person.

Bottom line "Treated and released" that has made my day.