Girl Killed in Wii remote Mix Up

[IainC]

Perhaps she was picking the gun up, it was pointing towards her and she had her hand around the trigger and the grip as she was lifting it off the table?

Regardless, I agree with your other point.

[Cyrrex]

If I had to guess, I'd say that she found the trigger to be harder to pull than on the Wii gun, and the easiest way for a small child to solve that problem is to turn that sucker around and use a thumb or two instead.

[Mrbloodworth]

That's loaded.  One in the chamber.  All she had to do was pull the trigger.

K, just checking. Because I figured as much.

[Amarr HM]

If I had to guess, I'd say that she found the trigger to be harder to pull than on the Wii gun, and the easiest way for a small child to solve that problem is to turn that sucker around and use a thumb or two instead.

Yes in fact, sadly, this is likely correct :(

Solution : They should make triggers easier to pull for three year olds so they can shoot their parents.

[Sheepherder]

It would have been awesome if she had emptied a clip into the television.

[Lantyssa]

I find it hard to think of anything awesome about a three year old having a loaded gun, even if no one is hurt.

I do wish it had been the step-dad rather than her.

[Nerf]

I find it hard to think of anything awesome about a three year old having a loaded gun, even if no one is hurt.

I do wish it had been the step-dad rather than her.

The thing is that it probably WAS the step-dad, or the mother who actually shot the little girl as they obviously had no idea how to safely handle a firearm.  It's a lot easier to blame the dead little girl and try to call it an accident than it is to own up to manslaughter (or murder) charges.

[Sheepherder]

Nerf: watching too much House?

[Der Helm]

Everybody lies.

[Vaiti]

Not to paint devils to the wall or defend the guy or anything.

But there is alot of damning going on without details, that rings in my ears as "oh totally, I'm way above being that stupid, that guy is so dumb, unlike me, I'd never do that"

Since there really seems to be little to no details in the article about this, without getting all Inspector Gadget and falling back to sterotypes, this is how I first thought the situation might have happened.

This guy and his wife hear noises outside their home, panic, get nervous and scared, big adrenaline rush as this guy goes into an unknown situation with the intention of protecting his family. Turns out it was nothing, adrenaline still pumping and  a huge fucking sigh of relief, absentmindedly sets gun down on table hold head and take a sigh of relief that it was nothing. Kids shot herself.

Stupid of the guy in this situation? Sure. But I put my coffee pot in the fridge sometimes from far less distracting thoughts.

Again, not really an attempt to defend the guy here, more of a counterpoint. I don't know the details either, I just like to think him losing his kid to his own stupid mistake will wrack him with guilt for the rest of his life.
But that is me being all optimistic and stuff. More likely he attempted to justify his actions as correct, in which case, fuck this guy.

[lac]

There's an universal truth that states that accidents happen and somebody will always fuck up.

Take a thousand careful parents, mix them with a thousand responsible gun owners and you'll also net one idiot who can't be anything but an irresponsible douche, even to his children. Maybe this guy was like that.

Still everybody screws things up, maybe not with a gun, but we all fuck up something sometimes and sometimes things go horribly wrong.
There are probably hundreds of ways my kids could have killed themselves in my house had circumstances been just 'right'.
Maybe this guy tried to be an awesome dad but fucked everything up in a moment of stress. He wouldn't be the first.

Policy towards an issue should never be dictated because of the actions of some fringe lunatics.
Freak accidents will always happen.
But sometimes people are just fucking irresponsible.

[LK]

But sometimes people are just fucking irresponsible.

You'd think "Never give this weapon to a child." would have at least been printed in the owner's manual of that weapon, or something.

Fuck, that kind of stupid you can't prevent.

[Lantyssa]

But there is alot of damning going on without details, that rings in my ears as "oh totally, I'm way above being that stupid, that guy is so dumb, unlike me, I'd never do that"

A child is dead.  There was a gun involved.  I don't need any more details.

I had gun safety drilled into my head from a young age because my parents understood the dangers of guns.  There should never, ever, be a loaded weapon not in someone's hand.  It's inexcusable, and this is exactly the reason why.

[squirrel]

There should never, ever, be a loaded weapon not in someone's hand.  It's inexcusable, and this is exactly the reason why.

Pretty much this 100%. If you're a responsible gun owner, then you know that the ONLY time there's a round in chamber or even a loaded clip near the gun regardless of type is when it's in your hand.

[Pennilenko]

The title of this thread should be,"Little girl dies to extreme stupidity and complete lack of responsibility!"

[Sir T]

I had gun safety drilled into my head from a young age because my parents understood the dangers of guns.  There should never, ever, be a loaded weapon not in someone's hand.  It's inexcusable, and this is exactly the reason why.

And by contrast these guys were letting their 3 year old play a WII game with a replica gun peripheral unauthorized by Nintendo.

[Vaiti]

Yeah, I wasn't attempting to generate an excuse for this. There isn't.
I'm also not really invested in it either. I don't have kids, it wasn't my kid. I can acknowledge it as a sad and tragic thing, but it personally doesn't affect me. Shitty way to look at it I guess, but honest.

The part that personally affected me was the little scenario I like to believe might have happened here. It's a good reason I don't personally own a gun. I have nothing against them what so ever, but due to the rather instant nature in which mistakes with handling one can lead to death, I just opt to keep my firearms off grounds and break them out for target practice.

Losing a child due to a huge fucking mistake like that I would wager would be torture for life, and if it did happen to me, I'd likely be considering taking my own life, no further punishment needed. I like to think this guy is in that boat right now, but that again is me being all optimistic and hopeful.

If we do put together the sparse details, it is easy to assume that isn't the case here, this guy is just an irresponsible ass who may very well be pulling the "It ain't my fault!" card. I can't sympathize with that at all.

Like Sir T said, and has been pointed out, who lets their child play with a life like facsimile of a toy gun like that, while owning a gun that looks very much like it. Likely not the guy in the scenario I painted.

[angry.bob]

This is horrible, and with a 3 year old in the house I can tell you that all it takes is for the kid to see mommy or daddy doing something and they'll try to do it too. It's why I've had to move most of my hobbies into the basement and only do them at night. Sadly it's nothing too exciting: Modeling, lead miniatures, woodcarving, etc... stuff with poisonous chemicals and sharp knives. The very first thing we did was get rid of my guns completely.

That being said, I like to tell my friend who's a cop that if I ever commit a crime with a gun, I'm gluing extra plastic stuff on it, painting it green, and dipping the tip in safety orange paint. He's not amused, but I'm sure I'm not the only person to think of it.

[Sheepherder]

I'm fairly certain I drew that one here.  Good to know adbots love me too.

EDIT: And the ad is gone, now I feel unloved.

[Grimwell]

With many things in life, there is no right way to do it really. There is the way each person prefers to handle it, but not one universal and proper way to do whatever it is.

Firearms are an exception to this. I've been shooting since I was three years old. I can still remember my father teaching me how to shoot with the b.b. gun, and proper gun handling was drilled into my mind at a subconscious level without any of the fun being removed from sporting with firearms. It may be my opinion, but there is absolutely no way to have an accident like this happen, not even through well intended mistakes, without violating the right way to handle a firearm.

The minute you bring out a weapon, the rules change. You are not allowed to be yourself, kid around, or do anything other than handle the weapon properly and use it for its intended purpose. You have to enter a different mental state. There is no exception to this, because exceptions hurt. When I went through Army training, they validated this same message in their own way. If you are holding a weapon, you are bound by an extremely different set of rules.

Irresponsibility is not allowed in those rules. There is no in-between. When the rules are broken, bad things happen.

I have firearms in my house. I also have children in my house. Now that I think of it, I have more firearms than children in the house by about a factor of 2. My house is no less safe for my children, because my firearms are kept properly and in accordance with doing things the right way. Should you ever read a news report about anyone in my home who is not an intruder getting hurt, you can be certain that I didn't follow the right way and deserve whatever jail time comes with it. No defense is tolerable as an excuse.

BTW, the link to the Uzi story is pure WTF??? I am not even sure how to process what I read there...

[Sheepherder]

For his 10th birthday they were going to buy him a hooker.