(courtesy rt.com)

“A 4-year-old child accidentally shot herself and her mother in Indianapolis, Indiana,” rt.com reports. “The 25 year-old mother was shot in the back of the head and is being treated in hospital. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed on Sunday that an adult and child were shot. They added that there was ‘no immediate threat to the community.'” Which isn’t strictly true.

Whenever a gun owner acts irresponsibly by leaving a gun unsecured around children — especially when a child is injured or killed, or injures of kills someone else — it effects the gun owning community. Negligent discharges by or at minors give the antis ammunition for their crusade to enact safe storage laws. [Click here for a state-by-state look at child access prevention laws.]

The efficacy of safe storage laws is a matter of debate. Gun control advocates are insensitive to the fact that aren’t any facts proving that safe storage laws prevent tragedy. Once again, those who favor “common sense gun reform” (or whatever they’re calling it today) rely on the “if it saves one life” argument.

How many more lives would be saved by state-sponsored childhood firearms safety education? No idea, but if we’re simply applying common sense to the problem, education has got to be the better bet. I mean, a gun owner can keep his or her children safe by securing their firearms — at least in theory, kids being clever little bastards) — but what about OPGs? Other People’s Guns.

The real problem for the gun owning community: safe storage laws set set the stage for “home inspections.” After all, how can the all-caring state establish that an adult’s firearms are safely stored before there’s an accident? Random home inspections are SOP in the UK, where The Old Bill can check firearms storage compliance  at any time, at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

To protect against the possibility of home inspections, to protect gun rights generally, gun owners need to secure the firearms in their home and teach all children The Four Rules of Gun Safety at the earliest possible age. Meanwhile, our Indianapolis mom earns our IGOTD award. Here’s hoping she recovers enough to accept it.

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26 COMMENTS

    • Safe storage laws, specifically the law that citizens in Boston turn in their muskets and powder for “safe storage” by the military authorities, were at the root of the American Revolution. Because once stored, they could not be retrieved.

  3. Here’s my question – How are all of these toddlers who stumble on improperly secured firearms so damn accurate with them even by accident?

    Can NYPD hire them as trainers for their officers?

    • Joke is funny; reality is point blank.

      Speaking of reality, one of the frustrating things about embracing the gun has been watching cop shows (just discovered Justified). I just can’t get over the pinpoint accuracy they’ve got from 25 or 30 yards.

    • Hitting someone else as in this case is rare. But there IS a good explanation of how [toddlers specifically] shoot themselves so easily with handguns.

      A toddlers’ hand is small and weak. Too small and weak to wrap around the grip and pull the trigger with a finger — the way WE think of discharging a gun.

      No, the way a handgun works ergonomically for a toddler is to put both their thumbs on the trigger and wrap their fingers around the back strap. They can muster enough force in that manner to even pull a double action revolver trigger.

      You tell me where that points the gun.

      O2

  4. Probably not an accident. The mom voted for Donald, the kid was suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and decided to take things into her own hands.

      • “…bassinet of deplorables?”

        Jonathan, you’ve been hanging around Ralph just a *little* to long… 🙂

        (TTAG: Come for the guns-n-gear, stick around for the comedy *Gold*)

    • Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder (TARD) is a pattern of pathologically dissociative and psychotic behavior, first observed in the late hours of November 8th 2016, and increasing in severity with passing time.

      Sufferers of TARD often exhibit pronounced cognitive dissonance, sudden bouts of rage, uncontrollable crying, suicidal ideation, and extreme sadness.

    • I’d like to think the mom voted with her vagina for Hillary, and the child tired of her nightly protests decided to remind her that mothers raise children and feminists get shot in the head.

  6. Another metropolis crawling with Hillary Youth and crime. No wonder she kept it in the nightstand ready to grab. Sad accident but these type of accidents have been happening since gunpowder was invented. The kid could have just as easily burned the house down with a lighter, which wouldnt have created any fuss on any blogs anywhere. Whats the point of making hay about it, other than righteous indignation and moral preening? Or hawking various gun safes? The kid was being a kid and the mother didnt think it through. If you survive, you learn and move on. If you dont, Darwin laughs. If she had shot an intruder and saved her kid she would be a hero on this blog. Demonizing people for their mistakes might make you feel better but really, what difference does it make?

  7. Any mention yet on whether the gun was legally owned? I find that in a lot of these accidents involving children and firearms, the media fixates on the gun and ignores an overarching pattern of irresponsible behavior.

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