Indiana Toddler Finds Gun in Mother’s Purse, Dies in Apparent Accidental Shooting

[SecularMotion]

A toddler who found a gun in his mother’s purse was fatally shot in an apparent accident at a home in Indiana Wednesday.

Police received a call about the shooting in the 5200 block of Alameda Road in Indianapolis just after 9 p.m., according to local television station WXIN.

Police said the mother of the 2-year-old boy had apparently left her purse, which contained a loaded gun, on the kitchen counter, the television station reported.

The toddler managed to find the gun when the mother stepped away, according to police.

http://ktla.com/2016/04/21/indiana-toddler-killed-in-apparent-accident-after-finding-gun-in-mothers-purse/

[Jackie Wilson Said]

1. I just have no words...Having a loaded gun in your purse while caring for a toddler

No words

Maybe I do, actually. Maybe we need to appoint a SC justice who will do away with that monstrosity Heller and we can protect these idiots from themselves.

Unless they live in a state that decides they have a right to a gun that ultimately kills their child, then I guess we cant protect them.

[melm00se]

11. You do know that the USSC

ruled that something like concealed carry restrictions are, in fact, Constitutional both at the federal and state level?

So what would you want the Supreme Court to do?

be honest now.

[Aristus]

2. These incidents are never accidental!

If you have a toddler in your home, and you keep a loaded gun within easy reach, then at some fundamental level, you want your child to die. Simple as that. Another shit-for-brains 'law-abiding gun-owner'...

[sarisataka]

3. Always

Keep firearms secured
http://www.projectchildsafe.org

[redwitch]

4. I worried about my son's safety when they were babies. A lot.

Every medication was locked up, every outlet had a plug in it, safety gates for the stairs, helmets when they rode their bikes. And some moms apparently are so oblivious that they leave loaded handguns on the kitchen table. I do not get it.

[flamin lib]

5. Just another responsible gun owner. No charges will be filed, it was an accident.

She accidentally bought the gun, accidentally loaded it, accidentally left it within reach of a toddler and the toddler accidentally killed himself. Could not have been prevented. Didn't do it intentionally, just a freak accident.

[sarisataka]

6. What are you, as a gun dealer

and owner, doing to reduce the number of incidents like this?

Besides sarcastic internet posts.

[Marengo]

16. For clarification, as a C&R license holder he's not authorized to function as a dealer...

unless he's changed to an 01 FFL. However, that doesn't change the essence of your point. As I recall, he once bragged about having multiple firearms. As vitriolic as he is against the RKBA in general, I have to wonder why. If that claim in in fact true.

[Eleanors38]

17. But "sarcastic internet posts" are free and EZ.

[randr]

7. It infuriates me that "accident" is used to describe

a blatant act of child abuse resulting in the death of the child.
The NRA along with its' members are complicit as well as they refuse to encourage the use of safe guns.

[gejohnston]

13. actually, they do

they even sell them on their website.

[Eleanors38]

15. Randr, I know you are dug in and refuse to acknowledge facts, but here they are...

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has for years distributed tens of millions of trigger and breech lock devices. This and other safety programs has reduced the childhood (under 15 yoa) death by gun accidents to below 70/year -- a fraction of what the rate used to be.

You needed to be corrected. Now you are.

[randr]

18. I am not aware of the NSSF

Or how they are related to the NRA. I have read numeous articles of gun shp owners being threatened for offering safe weapons. As a life long gun owner I have no problems with tight restrictions on who can own a weapon as do the majority of my gun owning, hunter, and rancher friends. I think the NRA has used our poorly worded Constitution to line their personal pockets.

[gejohnston]

19. The issue with "smart guns" is that it would trigger a New Jersey law

that would require gun stores carry ONLY those. The only one in existence was a $1800 .22 not counting the watch. It didn't work very well. The company decided to export it to the US only selling exactly zero in the EU. It was so bad, it didn't trigger the German law requiring all German manufactures to make them if one worked. The company ousted the founder and filed for the German equivalent of Chapter 11.
You must know a different group of gun owners, ranchers, or hunters that want tighter regulations. No, the Constitution is not poorly worded. The sentence structure isn't that different than a line from Pride and Prejudice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/13/jane-austen-and-the-second-amendment/

the NSSF is the manufactures' lobby.

[Eleanors38]

20. National Shooting Sports Foundation started Project Childsafe.

The rise in power of the NRA is directly attributable to early gun ban efforts some 40 years ago. That some in that organization are making a lot of dough is a characteristic of many pressure group lobbies who enjoy big cash flows from large memberships.

I also mainly hunt with my firearms, and I support UBCs as well as concealed-carry (as opposed to open-carry). However awkward some may view the Second's language, the style has been used in some state constitutions to support freedom of the press and the other First Amendment rights. In any case, the Second is expressed in the context of individual rights not to be infringed by government.

IMO, the small groups advocating gun control are in the unenviable position of emboldening groups like the NRA (and others) as well as the GOP every time they propose a ban or poorly thought-out restriction. This causes the entire "debate" to devolve into a wack-a-mole dynamic in which the pro-2A side has little reason to compromise, and where any moderate proposal has no constituency. Like it or not, the control side in all this is quite extremist and rather static in its dated approach.

[Duckhunter935]

22. How many gun locks or safety programs

Have the Bloomberg "gun safety" organizations given away or conducted, do tell please.

[Lazy Daisy]

8. When are we going to make this punishable by law

When are we going to put people in jail for taking the life of an innocent?
Accidents happen, it's no accident when a loaded weapon is left unlocked, it's bad habit.

[TeddyR]

10. I haven't read this particular story just the excerpt

But this is punishable in almost every state. Read an article a few months ago stating that prosecutors generally do not file charges because the parent/caregiver is already traumatized by the death of the child.

[ViseGrip]

12. Like the mom who found her child suffocated by a dry cleaning bag that was in the trash?

Stuff happens, tragedies every day. Sometimes looking for blame is not a solution.

[gejohnston]

14. while I agree that it is negligence,

would you apply the same law when it comes to swimming pools and household chemicals? Each of which kill more children that age than guns according to the CDC.

[flamin lib]

23. Well, GE, in my city all pools must be surrounded by a 6 ft fence with self closing

and self locking gates. All exits from the house to the pool area must have self locking doors with the lock too high for a child to reach (it's spelled out how high that is in the statute) and audible alarms when opened. The child drowning rate in pools fell dramatically, almost the same as drowning in toilets and buckets, in the years following the law change.

Perhaps guns should have similar precautions mandated by law?

[gejohnston]

24. one is a zoning ordnance,

and I seriously doubt every pool in the city is compliant. Most is only five feet, or with removable stairs. With a gun, simply a cabinet that is out of reach of children, as mandated in Florida, will get the same effect. Hell, you have a pistol without a round in the chamber, have a pistol like the HK P7 and still get the same result. I don't recommend that. The first most important thing to do is remove the curiosity. When I was a kid, the guns were just there, like the toaster. Nothing special or unusual about them being there.
They weren't loaded, but that isn't the point. Both of my brothers unloaded their revolvers as soon as they got home from work. When my oldest brother got married, his first lessen to my new four year old niece was to let her hold his service revolver, unloaded. When she gave it back, he loaded it and demonstrated what a .357 round will do to a block of ice and a watermelon.

[Eleanors38]

21. To some, child deaths via accidents are not created equal...

Whether by the MANY MORE causes (pools, tubs, electrocution, falls, poisoning, etc.) of death or by the increasingly obscure accident via gun, one must be prepared to "put people in jail" for ALL of these causes. Are you willing to do that?

[ileus]

9. on your person and in a proper holster...safety first.