A two year old girl was killed Tuesday afternoon in Burkesville, Kentucky in a tragic accident after her (five-year-old) brother shot her with a Cricket .22-caliber rifle he had received for his birthday. Their parents apparently thought the gun had been unloaded, but it turned out there was one round left. The gun was designed for use by children, and was supposed to be a training weapon.
While I’m sure that some people could use this incident in the gun-control laws debate, I think this was more of a parenting issue than anything else. No sane person would allow a five-year-old to be left unsupervised with a weapon, loaded or not. And I find it kind of ridiculous that the adults were unable to do a simple action such as unloading the weapon. Maybe they should be checked for a mental disorder that would allow them to act this way. And while I can understand a kid taking a martial arts class at a safe location with trained (and mentally capable) supervisors, I don’t get how the parents thought that getting their kid a gun would in any way benefit them. If they were in fact mentally retarded and unable to defend themselves, they should have recruited someone other than their five-year-old as their bodyguard.
The whole situation is horrible for anyone involved, especially the girl, but what I think is maybe even worse is that the kid will live with this for the rest of his life because of his parents.
allaboutdisney 