Should Owner’s / Parent’s be held accountable when children are killed?

[hm1ing]

Should Owner's / Parent's be held accountable when children are killed?

I am interested in the opinions of all NWF.com users on this matter. Please keep it legal and try not to shoot the messenger!

The problem: Children being killed maimed or shot with guns that are unsecured or assessable.

Solution: Should Owner's / Parent's be held accountable when children are killed?

If so, to what extent?

Charged with Negligent Homicide if neglect, wrong doing or unsecured weapons are used? (Unless the weapon was reported stolen.) "Kids gaining access to firearms in the home or of others if not 'Preventively secured or put away."

I value the audience on this site, and feel that a real solution can be found. I have served as a Hospital Corpsman for 25 ½ years, have weapons, and value the CHL and amendments in the constitution. However, I think a time has come that we all need to do more to save our children.

What do you think on this?

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[Nightshade]

I would have to think all the actions and the circumstantes of all involved would have to be evaluated, it's not all black and white..you really bring up some good questions I will be watching this one.

 

[AdamG2]

I don't know if they should be charged with manslaughter/murder/etc., but if you don't secure your firearms then there should be some penalty or criminal charge, and you should be able to be sued by the injured party. Like Nightshade said every situation will be different and there is no one size fits all solution. If you have kids you need to keep guns locked up. If you don't have kids and you normally have a loaded gun in a nightstand and the extended family (including kids) is coming over for Thanksgiving, it's your responsibility to lock your bedroom door, or otherwise secure your gun while there are kids in the home. People who are irresponsible with their guns make gun control more attractive to the masses. It's bad enough now with all the clamoring, we don't need to be giving them any more ammunition to try and further restrict firearms.

 

[deadeye]

I don't know if they should be charged with manslaughter/murder/etc., but if you don't secure your firearms then there should be some penalty or criminal charge, and you should be able to be sued by the injured party. Like Nightshade said every situation will be different and there is no one size fits all solution. If you have kids you need to keep guns locked up. If you don't have kids and you normally have a loaded gun in a nightstand and the extended family (including kids) is coming over for Thanksgiving, it's your responsibility to lock your bedroom door, or otherwise secure your gun while there are kids in the home.

Now that sounds like a California mentality. Why am I responsible for my guests kids being lacking in proper manners and staying out of where they should not be in the first place.

 

[sheepdip]

I agree with deadeye about visiting children staying out of where they are not supposed to be, however it is ultimately our responsibility as gun owners to store our firearms in a manner that children dont have access to them. even if the children are where they arent supposed to be. kids will be kids after all. as far as criminal charges go, i am not sure. negligence, probably. manslaughter/murder, no.

 

[AdamG2]

Now that sounds like a California mentality. Why am I responsible for my guests kids being lacking in proper manners and staying out of where they should not be in the first place.

I'm not saying parents shouldn't be responsible for their kids, but it's YOUR house. Like it or not at the end of the day the buck stops with YOU for things that happen under YOUR roof. Don't believe me? Ask your insurance company. You know if you have loaded firearms in your house, your guests with kids don't necessary know that. Yes parents should be responsible for their children, but children are curious, unpredictable, don't always do what they are told and it's pretty impossible to watch them every second. Like it or not that's just the way it is. If kids are going to be in your home you have just as much responsibility for their safety as their parents who may not know all the dangers in your house. Don't want that responsibility? then don't let friends and family bring kids over.

 

[jbett98]

Biometric Safe with Fingerprint Lock by Barska. Bolts to floor or wall. Instant access. Proven to work. Starting at $199.00. Cheap insurance.

 

[AdamG2]

Great recommendation. You don't even have to spend that much. A gunvault pistol safe that can be bolted down is under $100 at Amazon and Costco has an interesting wall mount shotgun lock called shotlock for $129. All allow quick access to authorized people.

A bit off topic, how reliable is the biometric reader? I have had mixed results with them on laptops so I am a bit wary of using them for a life or death application.

 

[Nightshade]

There's all kinds of ways to secure a firearm not all work, some oldtimers used to just keep them in the top of the closet
I alway knew where my dad's was.I knew he would have beat my A%%% for sure if i would have touched it. but were talking different generations now now not to long ago its been said a 3 yrs was able to pull a trigger on a kel tec and kill himself
first time i fired a keltec the trigger was so long and hard to pull how does that happen.

 

[jbett98]

My brother was into the final stages of production of the first biometric pistol vaults over four years ago.
The money man that was bankrolling the project died of prostate cancer before it came to completion.
I saw no errors when they were being tested.
He placed one of his prototype vaults at a car dealership, with a key to a brand new car inside. It was programmed to his fingertip only. The public was encouraged to try their luck. If it opened for you after trying it, you won the car. they never gave a car away.

 

[lowly monk]

[QUOTE Should Owner's / Parent's be held accountable when children are killed?
If so, to what extent?
Yes, They are responsible.
Case by case.
Thats why I keep mine locked up. And/or in a safe place.

 

[gunnails]

No.

Every case needs to be judged on it's own merits.

If the parents can be shown to have been negligent, then they should be charged under existing laws.

 

[hm1ing]

BTT this is an informal poll, please keep it going for max imput.

Thx

 

[JORHAMMER]

If a Bar (drinking) is liable for drunks actions after they leave the place, gun owners (we) should be liable for not securing our weapons.

The only problem I see with this is, what if the weapon was stolen by a stranger and that stranger committed a crime with that weapon 5 minutes after it was stolen and killed someone. Will the owner be liable then?

 

[Dunerunner]

Now for this scenario.....

Your kid has a friend over who steals a kitchen knife and murders his bullying tormentor. Should the home owner, you, be held responsible for that individual having access to the knife? Or let's say they use a ball bat stolen from your garage, or a golf club, are you responsible?

This is anti-gun rhetoric if I've ever heard it...criminalize the gun and gun owners! JMO

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

In the case of a gun being left unsecured around a child I do indeed believe the parent/owner should be held accountable. Owning a gun and having kids requires a degree of responsibility. Now there can always be circumstances that fall outside of the responsibility. Such as if you leave a gun in your nightstand and the neighbors kids comes in your house uninvited and unbeknownst to you and gets the gun and does something to himself or someone else with it. You would not be required to anticipate illegal entry into your home.

 

[aslinged]

If you're even a half decent parent and this happens your life is effectively over, internally. For anything but outright negligence/endangerment they should walk.

 

[deen_ad]

OP: Why don't you create a poll rather than asking for opinions?

NO!!!

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

Now for this scenario.....

Your kid has a friend over who steals a kitchen knife and murders his bullying tormentor. Should the home owner, you, be held responsible for that individual having access to the knife? Or let's say they use a ball bat stolen from your garage, or a golf club, are you responsible?

This is anti-gun rhetoric if I've ever heard it...criminalize the gun and gun owners! JMO

Unfortunately this type of logic is full of holes and resorts in a backlash against the arguer. When you look at any physical item you have to determine the amount of precautions needed to reasonably secure that item by both the likelihood and the potential of that item causing harm. You also have to look at whether or not that item has uses outside of causing harm that would make it reasonable for it to be present and available. A sharpened pencil can be deadly, but the likelihood is small and the potential for harm is small (a person with a sharpened pencil is not going to take down a half dozen people in a few seconds). It also serves another direct purpose as a writing instrument. Therefore it is not reasonable to assume a person should be as responsible for keeping it secured and inaccessible. A knife is similar. A gun serves one purpose. It is intended to inflict harm on another living thing. Be that through hunting or through self defense (target shooting is just a by product). It serves no legitimate legal use for an unsupervised child. There is no time it would be considered okay for it to be transferred unsupervised to a child. Therefore there is a higher responsibility to keep it secured and inaccessible.

 

[Dunerunner]

I doubt even a child would assume a sharpened pencil could be used as a weapon, although I have been stabbed with one; in third grade. Before there were guns, there were knives, spears and swords. Martial arts weapons, that are banned in many States today; were originally farming implements. I believe that where there is a will, there is a way. A person with intent will find a way to accomplish their goal and to hold someone else responsible for another persons actions, or for inadvertantly making access to anything that could be used as a weapon; is rediculous.

You seem to place considerable weight on how may people can be taken down, as you put it. I would argue that a 17 year old with a 14" butcher knife could take down several people before being overwhelmed.

Cases in point:

http://articles.petoskeynews.com/2006-03-06/home-invasion_24060635 four men arrested Sunday for allegedly assaulting a Gaylord man with a baseball bat

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lmart-Man-74-beaten-death-sporting-goods.html A suspect was arrested after he allegedly beat a 74-year-old man to death in a Lakewood, California WalMart.

<broken link removed>

Tomohiro Kato, 25, drove into a crowd of pedestrians on the closed-off main avenue of the Akihabara electronics district at about 12:30 p.m., Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman at the Metropolitan Police Department, said yesterday.

Kato, a contract worker at an auto parts manufacturer who was arrested at the scene, killed a 21-year-old woman and six men aged between 19 and 74 years.

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In January, a 16-year-old boy attacked five people and injured two of them with kitchen knives on a shopping street in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, Kyodo News reported at the time.

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``Even though it's prohibited to possess firearms and knives without a justifiable reason, knives are still available on the open market,'' Machimura told reporters. ``We don't know whether a further strengthening of controls would stop people from possessing these weapons, but we have to consider this.''