It's happened again.
Another kid has offed one of the adults in his house with a gun one of the adults gave him. Can you say WTF were you thinking, Dad? Yes, eleven-year-old Jordan Brown used his Christmas present, a special made-for-children (can I say WTF again?) to murder his new step-mom (well, girlfriend of his Daddy who was eight months pregnant while she was asleep in bed. Not much has been released about this child's psychological history but I can make sound reasonable guesses what this irresponsible father did.
1) You had a kid with a woman who didn't take to the mothering role very well, so you ended up raising him by himself (unless you are widowed and then I will give you a break). One has to wonder where the mother of the boy is since the father has custody.
2) Your son is used to having you to himself and suddenly you add a women and two little sisters. Did you spend a couple of years getting to know the woman and seeing if your son was emotionally able to deal with his instant new family (and competition for attention)?
3) Now, you added a new baby to the mix, a little brother, with this woman you haven't yet married.
4) You move all of them into your house.
5) You pay no mind to the fact that your son has a serious personality disorder.
AND THEN! You taught the kid to kill animals, gave him a shotgun of his very own, and left the shotgun unlocked so that he could pay you back for all your stupid choices. Brilliant!
Now, before I get a dozen emails saying I am cold-hearted and the father is already suffering enough, stop and think. A young woman has just lost her life, a baby has been killed before he even got to breathe, two little girls are now motherless, and a family has will never recover from their losses.
There is no excuse for giving your child a gun to play with. There is no excuse for giving an obviously disturbed child a gun to keep in his room. There is no excuse for your irresponsibility. None. The father should be going to jail with his son for aiding and abetting a homicide.
I don't have a problem with keeping weapons in the home for protection and for hunting (although I hate hunting). I believe this is a citizen's right. But, for God's sake, if you demand the right, you have to accept the responsibility. It is time to hold gun owners responsible for what happens with their weapons. If your gun is locked up, someone breaks in and steals it and this is reported immediately to the police, the gun at that point is not your responsibility. But, if you don't lock the weapon up, any crime it is involved in should be considered a crime you committed; your weapon, your responsibility, your crime.
Is this concept so hard to understand? Why is it I have never seen any move in our country to charge adults for giving guns to children to kill with? I have been harping on this for years and it seems the idea is repugnant to most people, even the prosecutors. I don't understand why we can't say enough is enough.
Guns don't kill people. Adults who give children guns kill people.
Guns don't kill people. Adults who give children guns kill people.
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
I tell you, Pat, this is one subject that just mystifies me. I had a 10-year-old cousin hold a loaded rifle on me and his sister when I was a kid. This kid was probably in one of those ideal situations where it's easy to justify letting him use a gun. His family lived out in the middle of nowhere, and they lived off the land. His dad was very strict and straight-laced, and you'd think if anyone could prevent a kid from becoming a bully he could. But no. I still have a bump on my ring finger where this same kid later handed me a BB gun and told me to do something with it that made the thing's hammer land on my finger.
ReplyDeleteI would like to think if I had a husband who insisted on letting my kid play with guns, that that would be a dealbreaker and I would leave him if that's what it took. I'm in Texas and I meet these people all the time, and they all think it can't happen to them. I guess when people have kids, they forget what it's like being a kid and how your parents are really the last people who really know what you're thinking, and they put blinders on and then blame others if something bad happens. Your kid could be the most honest good kid on earth, too, and still have a tragic accident, because kids constantly have accidents. It's insane. Parents need to be held responsible for that and for their underage kids having children, too.
The father's iresponsibility borders curiosity. You can see on the child's face anger, coldness, determination and hatred. The poor woman married into a family of criminals and now she is dead.Could she have known? There are signs if you know how to discern them. These things should be taught in school...
ReplyDeleteI think the problem, Diane, is that people are in too much of a hurry to satisfy a need; companionship, money, sex, etc. They then ignore or minimize anything that would get in their way of getting what they want. They rush into relationships because they want it NOW and because we have a society that does not teach courting and careful mate selection. Even if you are willing to go slow and make sure this is a healthy relationship, the other person may not be willing to wait (for sex, companionship, etc). So, people (fools) rush in rather than miss out.
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