This thread is about one particular point I gleaned from the above article.
While Zwerner, who was struck through the hand and into her chest by a single round, is in stable condition after sustaining life-threatening injuries, the incident has caused a fervor in the community as law enforcement tries to address questions of legal liability and how a child so young could have access to a gun and know how to use it.
“That is a great question and I wish that we never had to have asked: how does a six-year-old know how to use a firearm?” Newport News Chief of Police Steve Drew said when asked by reporters about the boy’s knowledge of firearms. “I don’t know that I could give you an adequate answer. I know that I have seen some video games out there that depict it pretty clearly. Whether it’s something, it might be a toy at one point, I don’t know how to answer that. I — it’s just unprecedented. I don’t know how to answer that question.”
All three of my children were functionally knowledgeable about firearms at age 6. All were hunting by age 7.
I know how to answer that question.
The authorities may not know how to answer that question.
The question that needs, and is, asked is about access.
I don’t think the govt needs to mandate HOW a firearm is stored…… but if it’s stored in such a way as your 6yr old can access it without you even noticing I think your liable due to negligence.
Y’all both have it 100% correct. This is an issue of access. A 6 year old should not be able to have unrestricted and unsupervised access to a firearm.
Yep. By the age of six most children have witnessed hundreds, even thousands, of examples on TV of how to use a gun. Heck, even though there was no TV where I grew up, I knew the basics of how to fire a gun before I was six by seeing westerns at the Saturday matinee.
The only questions here are how did the child gain access to the gun without the parent knowing, and why did he think it was fine to take it to school and point it at his teacher.
I was about 6 or 7 when my father got liquored up one day and decided it was time to teach me how to shoot. So, he grabbed a few phone books and his 30-30 lever action and took me in the back yard. Piled the books against a bird bath and commenced with the teaching.
Two great lessons of the day:
NYPD doesn’t take “I’m drunk” as a valid excuse for discharging a firearm within city limits.
Dad wasn’t such a mean drunk when he was hooked up in the back of a squad car.
There is 100% guilt in every intentional crime but…due to different circumstances, the question becomes, how should it be distributed? In this case, there’s no question IMHO…it ALL should be levied on the parents…PERIOD.
The real questions should be “How does a 6-year-old form the intent to bring a gun to school with the purpose of shooting a teacher?” And then, “How could the parents of a severely mentally ill child allow him access to a gun?”
There had been enough red flags to show that this mentally ill kid should not have been in a regular school- he clearly needed a safe, therapeutic environment.
