4-year-old shot and killed by 3-year-old in Houston, sheriff says

[billh58]

A 3-year-old in Houston, Texas, gained access to a firearm and "unintentionally" shot and killed a 4-year-old, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said the preliminary investigation showed that the two children had been inside an apartment on Bammel North Houston Road. with one other person.

"The toddler was pronounced deceased at the scene," he said on Twitter.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/4-year-old-shot-and-killed-by-3-year-old-in-houston-sheriff-says/ar-AA18yOPO?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=38fb4f626b28412aa0e8f4f53e61a5ba&ei=27

A three-year-old "unintentionally" shot and killed a 4-year-old? No, the truth is that whoever the monster is that left the gun within reach of the 3-year-old is wholly and intentionally responsible for the death of the 4-year-old. The worst form of child molestation is shown in this horrific example of the right-wing misuse of the US Constitution to "intentionally" arm and enable the segment of our society that belongs to the cult of irresponsible gun ownership.

And another innocent child dies due to the idiocy of the Second Amendment Absolutists, and their lethal fetish: the gun.

[Walleye]

1. Groomers!Texans continue to live in denial

[billh58]

4. Too true

and their denial of gun violence, like so many other anti-social stances they embody, costs innocent people grief, hardship, and death.

[Walleye]

5. You would think a shoot out between preverbal toddlers get somebody's attention

But noooo

[Alexander Of Assyria]

2. Front Page News in all America, triggering a national debate on Gun Reform, right??!

Or buried by corporate media…as it might reflect badly on one of only Two Parties pouring billions into ad money accounts almost continuously.

One Party falls, the Party is over for the corporate media.

[AndyS]

3. Yeah, it gets to ya after awhile.

I woke up this morning to local news; Mother wounded 11 year old daughter killed in N Dallas home, Police: 4 dead in shooting at Dallas apartment building, Texas man left chilling voicemails for podcaster he stalked, killed (shot) and that's just the white people.

More guns more death. There is simply no way to phrase it any differently.

Yet the gunners say it's not the gun, it's the people using them. When a suggestion is made to better screen the people using them the gunners find a way to prevent it happening. A snake eating it's own tail . . .

[billh58]

6. The American Public

has become tone deaf to gun violence, just as they have become immune to right-wing hypocrisy, corruption, and outright lies. We must get out the Democratic vote and save the USA from itself as we have done before. Sane and honest Americans are in the majority -- we just need to motivate them to actually get off their butts and vote.

[sanatanadharma]

14. The people who need to be deeply investigated are those who want guns.

Indeed, "...the gunners say it's not the gun, it's the people using them."

And the people using the guns are the people who wanted guns.
A wanting begets a getting and a getting begets a(b)using. b = killing.

The desire for guns is the root of the problem.
Every gun owner is a gardener of gore; watering the problem right down to the roots and breeding for the best blood-letter.

The people who need to be deeply investigated are those who want guns.
The problem is psychological.
Upon that are layers of sociopathic and psychopathic self-identities wrapped up in gun-lust.

[70sEraVet]

7. And, of course, this, because 'Freedom':

"It is not clear at this point if anyone will face charges."
https://abc13.com/child-shot-killed-toddler-gains-access-to-gun-3-year-old-shoots-4-year-old/12947339/

[billh58]

10. Face charges?

Which charges? Reckless child endangerment, manslaughter, accessory to a crime with a firearm? I'm sure that a creative prosecutor could come up with several logical and pertinent laws which were broken in this case. 5 adults in the home and no one was watching the babies?

I guess I forgot that this happened in Texas, and the 3-year-old was just standing her ground.

[wnylib]

15. Charges should at least be

criminally negligent homicide for the owner of the gun AND for the adults who were in charge of the children at the time.

[getagrip_already]

8. It would be so simple to require active safeties on handguns not used for LE or public safety...

The nug lobby has fought hard to prevent any mandates on design or safety

So, why "can" a 3 year old fire a handgun? It's because most semi-automatic handguns are tactical weopons and don't have active safeties. Glock is famous for this. They have a passive safety that will prevent the nug from firing if you drop it, but any light pressure against the trigger will fire the gun. The trigger pressures are so low any 3 year old could fire one.

But if that nug had a lever that had to me physically moved, and a trigger pressure a 3 year old couldn't manage, then a lot fewer people would be shot. Just google "glock knee". Even weopons instructors have accidently shot themselves holstering their nugs.

But Noooooooo. Can't have anything that will slow down killing someone!

In comparrison, just about every revolver sold befor the glock phenom had an active safety and required a stronger finger pull.

[PJMcK]

9. Ask Wayne LaPierre

Which kid was the “good guy with a gun?”

This is a disgusting scar on American society. Like racism, it’s never going away.

[CrispyQ]

11. From Kaiser:

What is the #1 cause of death for children?

Firearms are now the number one cause of death for children in the United States, but rank no higher than fifth in 11 other large and wealthy countries, a new KFF analysis finds. Jul 8, 2022

https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/press-release/firearms-are-the-leading-cause-of-death-for-children-in-the-united-states-but-rank-no-higher-than-fifth-in-other-industrialized-nations/

?resize=1024,643

I was surprised to learn this just the other day.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. JAMA also had similar stats a couple months ago

Homicide is a leading cause of death in kids, and rates are rising, study finds

By Jen Christensen, CNN
Published 11:04 AM EST, Mon December 19, 2022

CNN — Homicide is a leading cause of death for children in the United States, a new study says, and the overall rate has increased an average of 4.3% each year for nearly a decade. Black boys were killed more than any other group, and firearms were the most common weapon used in children’s deaths, according to the study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

From 1999 to 2020, 38,362 US children were homicide victims, the researchers found. The overall homicide rate had an especially “precipitous” rise from 2019 to 2020, with rates increasing across several demographics, the study says. In that time period alone, the number of children who were killed in a homicide rose 27.7%.

The marked increase may be partly driven by the general trend in firearm-related homicides of children, which rose 47.7% between 2019 and 2020, the study says. Overall homicide rates increased the most for boys, rising 16.1% between 2018 and 2020. There was a decline in homicides among girls between 1999 and 2020, however.

(snip)

A jump in firearm injuries

A separate study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics found that the rates of firearm injuries treated at children’s hospitals in the US significantly increased during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and stayed elevated throughout 2021. The researchers compared the number of firearm injuries treated at children’s hospitals between April 2020 and December 2021 against those from April 2018 to December 2019. There were 1,815 firearm injuries in the earlier period and 2,759 during the pandemic, a 52% increase.

(snip)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/health/homicide-child-death/index.html

A lot of this was actual "caught in the crossfire" deaths.

[CrispyQ]

13. Wow. Those are some sobering stats.

> Almost 28% rise in the number of children killed during the pandemic, when we were all staying home.

> A 52% increase in firearm injuries during the pandemic, when we were all staying home.


Almost sounds as if home is more dangerous for kids, than schools, as far as guns go.

[ShazzieB]

16. JFC.

Homicide is a leading cause of death in kids, and RATES ARE RISING, study finds

The words "RATES ARE RISING" is what practically jumped off my screen when I scrolled down to this post.

"Rates are rising." RISING. Just how much are the rates going to have to rise before the gun hampers perceive that this is a serious problem? And why do I think that there may have to be piles of dead bodies in the streets before that happens? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I had turned on the local Philly news radio station this afternoon and heard this -

(web version of the story)

14-year-old boy shot, killed in Northeast Philadelphia
Police are looking for three masked suspects, dressed in black


By Kristen Johanson, KYW Newsradio
KYW Newsradio
4 hours ago

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 14-year-old boy is the latest victim of the city’s gun violence crisis — shot 10 times in Northeast Philadelphia on Monday just after noon.

On the 6100 block of Algon Avenue, near Oxford Avenue, the boy was struck five times in the torso and five times in his leg, according to police. Crime scene officers said there are probably more than 20 shell casings scattered on the ground.

He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. The shooting happened near the Oxford Village Apartments, just blocks away from Samuel Fels High School. The school was placed on lockdown for a brief period of time after the shooting.

The School District of Philadelphia said the victim was not a student at Fels.

(snip)

https://www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio/news/local/teen-boy-shot-killed-northeast-philadelphia

[ShazzieB]

18. This chart should be posted EVERYWHERE. CONSTANTLY. Multiple times a day.

As many times as it takes until people take notice.

Nah, who am I trying to kid. No better how many SENSIBLE people take notice of this, we'll never have truly sensible gun control laws as long as the firearms industry has most of the GOP lawmakers in their pocket, and as long as those lawmakers can use the 2nd amendment as an excuse to resist passing such laws

I am as devoted to most of he U.S. Constitution as anyone here, if I said what I really think of the 2nd amendment....... never mind, I won't say it. Have this instead:

And now I see that I replied twice to the same comment. THAT is how upset this whole issue makes me, in case you couldn't tell.