World News Korner

3 year old accidentally shoots and kills baby brother with unsecured handgun.

Courtesy of azfamily.com:

A toddler accidentally shot and killed his younger brother at a Payson apartment on Tuesday.

According to the Payson Police Department, the boys were playing in an apartment at 303 S. Ash Street at around noon when they discovered a gun.

The 3-year-old shot the 18-month-old in the head. The victim was rushed to Payson Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The mother and the two children were visiting a 78-year-old friend at his apartment which is in the same complex where they live.

They had only been there 10 or 15 minutes when the boys got into another room where they found the gun.

Police said, the mother was looking for the boys and just as she walked through the door of that room the 3-year-old boy fired the gun.

A lot of pro-2nd Amendment advocates would have you believe that the majority of gun owners are uber responsible individuals with gun safety training, who treat their weapons carefully, and keep them secured when not in use.

But there is substantial evidence to prove that such is not the case.

I would say that a large percentage have a gun in their home that they really don't think about that often unless they hear a bump in the night, or decide to blow off steam at a shooting range.

The owners seem to often consider the weapons to be more of a tool then an instrument of death, and do not treat it with the kind of respect that is called for when dealing with an object that can even accidentally discharge and end a human life.

It is really this lack of responsibility, and the vast numbers of weapons in our community, that puts all of us at risk.

All it would take is stricter guidelines for the purchase and ownership of these weapons, a comprehensive registration process, and some mandatory training, to dramatically reduce the number of accidental deaths in this country.

Personally I feel badly for this mother who had every right to assume that there was not a deadly arsenal only feet away from her children.

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