Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Sandy Tucker

OK, so who “owns” a gun? The person who bought it, obviously. Only maybe not. At the risk of going all Eddy the Eagle (the NRA character, not the UK ski jumper), we must all take “ownership” of gun safety. If you see someone at a range waving their gun around so that the barrel points at flesh and blood (even momentarily), you should have a quiet word with them, or tell the range jefe. If you walk into someone’s house and see a gun left in plain view, you should tell the owner that they are a fucking moron, or words to that effect (depending on the nature of your relationship to the fucking moron, where you’re standing and what you’re carrying). If you have small kids in the house and your boyfriend leaves three loaded semi-automatics—two .25-caliber and one 9mm—“hidden” behind a top lip of a 6′ entertainment center, it’s up to you to say “Are you a fucking moron? Unload those guns and put them in a safe or I’m calling the cops and telling them you’ve taken my kids hostage.” (Word choice subject to the above caveats.) If only.

“Twelve-year-old Darius Tucker and his 14-year-old half-brother had all three guns down after coming home from school,” louisvillemojo.com reports. “They were playing with two of the weapons when Darius was shot with the 9mm handgun by his half-brother inside their home in the 4000 block of Shady Villa Drive, Wilkerson said. Darius was found dead about 2:30 p.m. from a single gunshot wound to the chest.” Technically, Sandy Tucker’s [unnamed] boyfriend owned the guns. Both of them now own this tragedy.