A woman was killed in an Idaho Wal-Mart Tuesday morning when her 2-year-old son accidentally shot her, according to local authorities.
Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Stu Miller said in a statement that the boy was seated in a shopping cart when he reached into his mother’s purse and fired the gun.
Police have identified the 29-year-old victim as Veronica J. Rutledge from Blackfoot, Idaho. Deputies found her dead on the scene “from an apparent gunshot wound.” She had been shopping with the toddler and other family members, Miller said.
The woman had a concealed weapon permit to carry her gun. She apparently had done everything right except allowing her toddler to get his hands on her weapon. What laws, if any, could have prevented this tragedy from happening? What common sense behaviors could have prevented this tragedy?
People will say gun lock. That does you no good if you are out and about and have to use your gun. (Remember, we don’t know WHY she was carrying a concealed weapon.) People will say to holster the weapon. Will that make it more difficult for a child to get his hands on? People will say not to carry the weapon loaded. The list goes on. Let’s discuss it.
PS: I guess I should have said “a state or a municipality”.
@Moon-howler
The toy guns generally have orange muzzles. Unfortunately, there is some sport to be had in removing or painting over the orange, making many of these toys look exactly like the real thing.
Yea and then everyone whines and cop-hates when some kid gets knocked off by accident.
@Moon my wife has gotten many warnings for things I get tickets for. Expired inspection stickers apparently are the menfolk’s responsibility so even if I am driving her car I get the ticket when she forgets to get her car inspected but if she gets stopped she just gets a warning because, well, after all it was my fault. Aggressive driving is disproportionately targeted against men. The advertisement for the start of the anti-aggressive campaign used to have a really sexists ad on radio making clear that male drivers were the target.
I don’t want the police to give me aid at the side of the road. I have a cellphone and can call AAA. I also know not to be stranded and make sure if I am starting to have a mechanical failure that I have a suitable exit point. One time I was forced to stop by a cop in a construction zone (I tried to go to a safer spot but he insisted I stop at that point) and sure enough the police car was struck by a drunk driver. How hard is it to snap on the video camera for evidence and send the ticket to the vehicle owner for stuff like expired registration and inspection stickers. The move over law is really stupid. Now we have collisions and traffic tie-ups caused by traffic trying to force their way into an adjacent lane to pass a police officer dealing with enforcing DOT administrative functions…not even safety issues.
I don’t think that anyone should be killed for committing a crime…especially property crimes…We disagree on that point. Everyone has friends and relatives that will morn their death and they don’t deserve the grief even if most people think the criminal does deserve to die.
I don’t necessarily think that criminals deserve to die. I jus don’t have as much sympathy for someone involved in a bank robbery as I do someone walking down the street minding their own business. I am also not so sure I don’t think that some property is “killable” over. I suppose I have mixed emotions. I would have no problem is a serial stranger rapist got the death penalty. (NOT statutory rape)
I have only gotten one warning in my life and that was in BC, Canada. Women are targeted outside bars by cops because they are less trouble than male drunks. They just cry and puke and don’t usually try to punch you in the face.
I think that just might be your personal experience. Where are you located? We don’t have dashboard cams in PWC.
Kids don’t play with guns (toy or otherwise) around me or in my neighborhood.
I didn’t want my kids to have toy guns. Somehow I always found at least one in the toy box.
I don’t allow toy guns in my home, except for those super-soaker squirtguns that could never be mistaken for anything other than a squirtgun. I prohibit toy guns because “Cops and Robbers”, “war”, “Cowboys and Indians” all involve kids pointing toy guns at each other, with the objective to “play shoot” the other. As a gun owner and strong supporter of the 2A, Right-to-carry, I see “play” as counter to safety, and the responsibility associated with RTKABA. I have some training arms, inert, conspicuously marked as such. My child knows to treat any gun as if it were real, and to “Stop! Don’t Touch! Tell an adult!”. I also started her on the BB gun at age 6, and she’s graduated to the Air Rifle, all with supervision. But the “no toy guns” is a firm rule in my home.
Totally agree with you, Steve. Guns aren’t toys. Super Soakers were the exception at my house also. Squirt guns are different.
My kid LOVES Nerf.
Got no problem playing cops and robbers. We grew up doing that sort of thing with no problems.
She is ALSO very responsible with firearms. She can tell the difference.
Glad to hear. I grew up with toy guns, bought from the store. Made my own with wood, clothespins and bands cut from bicycle innertubes that shot nails, screws, bolts and ball-bearings. Had the plastic dart-guns. We played “War”, “Cops and Robbers”, and “cowboys and Indians”. We had “shingle-fights” whenever someone had a new roof put on. Heck, I even made a “fishzooka”, with a piece of PVC pipe, that shot frozen pike at least a couple of hundred feet. I think these were different times. We didn’t have the 1st-person shooter games, and we weren’t medicated with psychotropic drugs, in an effort to get us to sit still. TV violence was explosions and cars flipping over, but did anyone ever actually get shot on the A-team? No.
Water fights are OK. Launching “play” projectiles at each other, not so much. I look at it this way, if she ever needs to pick up a gun, point it and pull the trigger, she’ll know you don’t get any “do overs”. No “go to base, count to 100, and you’re back in the game”. That’s just how we’ve decided to approach this. Your mileage may vary, and your journey have different scenery, detours, tolls and potholes.
I’m with Steve on child rearing and guns. Super soakers are the limit and no 1stP shooter games.
2015…first I’m agreeing with Starry on the Idaho thing, and now Ed’s with me on toy guns and video games. Wow!
Steve, is it time for an intervention?
Maybe, or I need a vacation.
@Steve Thomas
My daughter understands that too. Heck, she is upset that her airsoft bb “.45” has no way to check to see if there is “one in the chamber” after the “mag” is released.
We don’t even have computer games except for the Wii and my computer games…which are all strategy games. Motion sickness from FP shooters sucks.
As you say….. mileage will vary.