Parents charged after three year old picks up a gun.

[griz]

Here is the link.
The parents were charged with child neglect after a neighbor videoed them target shooting in their yard. The three year old picked up a handgun while they were downrange. The local news showed the video, replaying several times the part where the kid picks up the gun and the neighbor says "oh my God". The couple says the neignbor has a grudge.

Even seeing the video, it's kind of hard to tell how serious this is because there is no overall view. At least from what they showed on TV, there is nothing to establish how far away the parents are from the child.

 

[ZeroX]

Here we go...

 

[Tharg]

Ye haw - and long gun leaning against the car in the photo.

Can't say much - they didn't say much. The gun could be unloaded and cleared w/ the breach open and no mag in the gun... either way - they should have been watching said 3 yr old better.

if only cause he's 3....

if only cause they are SHOOTING w/ a 3 yr old in the area.

Still - the story ain't come out yet - even the post is almost a one liner w/ a "frame from the vid" and pictures of his red neck lookin mug shots.... sure to get the boils up on some people.

bleh, this is the kind of crap that gets the "for the children" people up in arms... never mind the fact that every stat is low (and nearly insignificant for the population) on child fire arms deaths...

(and yes i know ... if it was MY child - its not insignificant. Even if i had one)

for the record - could have lost my own step mom (who wierdly isn't my step mom any more by law... but i get along w/ her better than anyone in my family...rofl) because my lil bro go ahold of my dad's gun and pointed it at mom and said "bang mommy bang!". According to my dad - he had defeated 2 of 3 safety's... altho everything from my pops is w/ a grain of salt....

point being - i was taught better than even my lil bro - i didn't TOUCH the dang things less i was given specific permission and was handed said firearm from a parent... no clue why it didn't extend to my lil bro - but knew my butt was grass if I did different....

J/Tharg!

 

[whm1974]

From the picture I can't even tell the kid is even holding a gun. The kid could be playing with a toy.

-Bill

 

[grislyatoms]

My six year old daughter handles my guns quite frequently. IF she asks first. The key to making this work is to let her handle them EACH and EVERY time she asks. Takes the mystery and appeal out of it.

As to the story, when we go to the range she is never more than 2 or 3 feet away from me. Even though she knows and practices the rules by heart, I would NEVER leave a young child unattended with a gun, to walk downrange or otherwise. That is sheer stupidity, if in fact that is what they did; the picture is fuzzy and story is incomplete.

 

[Majic]

Now there's a good neighbor for you. Instead of warning you of what your child is doing, they videotape it and give it to the police and media. I wonder how much they got paid for that tape?

 

[Uncle Doj]

They are apparently feuding with the neighbors... hence the vindictive videocamera.
The parents should have been more careful. All they had to do was shut the trunk. It's not that much trouble to get out your keys and pop the trunk when you need to. I saw the video and the coverage. Parents should have done a better job but not IMO a case for taking the kids away.
The local station played it for all it was worth.

 

[griz]

The officer who responded to the two calls by the neighbor has resigned over concerns about how he handled the calls.

Here is the story. Basically the first call was for firing too close to the house, and he thought it was resolved. The second call was the neighbor saying she had a video which the officer declined to review. You know what happened after that.

The couples lawyer says viewing the whole tape shows the child was always under the eye of the parents, even though there are frames where they are seen seperately. That was in this article from another paper.

In this thread and another one a lot of people have said the parents should not have let this happen. If that is the case, at what age should a child be allowed to touch an unloaded gun on camera? How about in your home without a camera?

 

[Henry Bowman]

As Majic said, either the neighbor knew that the gun was not real or was unloaded (NEVER a proper assumption), in which case the tape and behavior on it were a non-issue and there was no danger, or the neighbor chose to videotape what could have been a fatal accident over trying to prevent it. If the latter is the case, then the neighbor was negligent and endangered a child as well. You do not have the duty to intervene or come to the rescue, but if you choose to videotape the event, you have chosen to become involved.

So many times I have seen media cameramen or "journalists" not get involved in the story or become "part of the story." I have seen news video tape of a person in a car being swept over a ledge by flood waters (several years ago). I would so love to see report that "We obtained the following footage courtesy of [our competitor] because, as you can see, the cameraman for Channel _ News rushed to the aid of the person in peril."