Fun With Guns: They Took Quite Seriously When Someone Said, “Get a Room” Edition
Let’s mosey on over to New Mexico, where a couple was living in a hotel room with a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and another baby due next month.
Authorities said a 3-year-old boy got hold of a handgun from his mother’s purse and fired just one shot that wounded both his parents.
Albuquerque police said the toddler apparently reached for an iPod but found the loaded weapon.
Both parents are only wounded. Had I been living in a hotel room with two adults and two toddlers with another on the way, I’d have shot them a long time ago.
Local media reports said police believed Saturday’s shooting was accidental.
So the kid is a nicer person than I am.
Thanks to Zyxomma for the heads up.
Motel rooms are the last resort for many, one step above being homeless. I’ve been in exactly the same situation both as a working parent in a two-parent household, and as a single mother whose room was being paid for by Catholic Charities. It’s so sad that something like this creates even more chaos in a family that is already struggling on so many levels.
1Can you imagine being the social worker that has the job of returning those kids to their parents when the fallout is over?
2I have a lot of sympathy for them because they do sound like they are one step above homeless–but having a gun in a hotel situation may have seemed sensible (to them) but it was incredibly dangerous to the other families and travellers living nearby. A bullet can go anywhere. There was a case written up in the New Yorker of a woman who was mysteriously killed in a hotel room in Texas when the jerk who was in the room next door was drunkenly playing with his gun. She was shot and died without their being able to find the hole from the bullet for a while and the guy left the hotel without confessing to having done it (IIRC).
My point here is that the necessity that is forced on people, or that they believe is forced on them, to protect themselves rather than being able to trust “herd immunity” in society at large: police protection, hotel management, other guests in the hotel makes every person feel they need to arm themselves with predictable results. People are not able to maintain operational vigilance at all times and they are simply not able to own guns in public or semi public spaces without this kind of risk to everyone around them.
3A tragic result of the “guns make you safe” meme. In a time of crisis, the parents undoubtedly felt as though everything was collapsing around them. This made them feel unsafe – so they kpt something that gave them a false sense of safety.
Fortunately, nobody was killed.
4How would a gun have helped the poor woman who caught a bullet from the drunken man? People with guns kill! Why else would they have one? Morons!
5In a tangent to the notion that “guns make you safe” it’s becoming increasingly apparent that where there are more guns, there are more people being shot by guns. And Texas isn’t even in the top 5!
http://www.vpc.org/press/1501gundeath.htm
6Let’s look at the “bad situation” they were in. Two preschool kids and she’s pregnant again? Someone please explain birth control to these people. Better yet, get the damn Publicans out of office so sensible people can make effective birth control easy to get and cheap or free.
The number of abortions has gone down… but the birth rate has not gone up. How is this? More people getting access to good birth control, especially the long-acting reversible kind like implants and IUDs. Thank Obamacare for some of that. Obama’s preventing more abortions than the people with signs screaming.
7That kid got a two-fer without even trying. His parents are guilty of criminal negligence for leaving a loaded gun unsecured and with the safety off. Unfortunately criminal negligence usually accompanies criminal stupidity.
8Rhea, I couldn’t agree more!
As others have noticed, this family is in need of help. So, where are Wayne and the NRA boys lending their support to this young marksman? He scored a two for one. He deserves a home for his family, college scholarships for he and his siblings and a respectable paying job for his Dad.
Where is the pro-life crowd, too? The boys Mom has two and another on the way. She is doing everything according to your plan, so where’s your part of helping this family? iirc Bush the Lesser was all for church based solutions, as are most Christo-fascists. So, put your money where your mouth is and gather together with Wayne & his boys to meet this family’s needs.
Surely all the Koch fueled politicians could write Chuck and Davy on behalf of this family to buy them some boots and the straps necessary to pull themselves into a better future. Right?!?
9Dad’s wound was quite appropriate, drilled him through the buttocks.
10They were probably staying at that cut rate place, The OK Motel & Corral. It’s barely OK, so cheap they don’t even leave a light on for you. Probably hard to see what kind of characters might be wandering around outside after dark.
Better to get the early bird special down the block, then get back inside before sundown.
11PKM, maybe if the kid had shot the fetus, the pro-life crowd would get involved. But if any post-born humans are in danger, screw ’em. And we know the NRA doesn’t give a flip if you live or die, as long as you buy guns first.
“Bush the Lesser” is good. When I got sick of the W and HW distinctions, I went for the Duvalier model: Papa Bush and Baby Bush.
12The most recent article I could find said that the Dad is a felon on probation, and is facing charges for being anywhere near a gun. The woman is not the boy’s mother: she tried to alibi the man by saying she had just bought the gun, but I’m sure the New Mexico police will figure that out. The two toddlers are in temporary foster care. The woman is still in the hospital. Sigh . . . . . . . .
13Rhea, I liked Molly’s designation – Shrub.
14So . . . Jebbie is Flora? Hedge? Veg? Greenery?
Rhea @7 nailed it again, right on the money! I’m going to send another donation to Planned Parenthood.
And how is it again (yeah, once again) that guns make all of us so safe?
Also, thanks to grammy97 @13. All I can say is “What? Huh?”
15Erk! Sad story! Even sadder and sorrier is the fact that there are actually people who think the toddler should have taken better aim and killed both parents and thus save the Chosen and Blessed part of society from an additional tax burden. Bleh!
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