Florida toddler shoots, kills himself with parents' gun

Alone, with a loaded gun in the nightstand?

The other kid is 7.

Normal babysitter age.

Bet Dad didn't tell the kid there was a gun at toddler level. Toddler probably saw the Dad put it there.

That happens often, though without the guns.

Thank you for sharing this.

One would think he would have a little more firearms training and common sense than that.

At the very least, unload the weapons while you're out of the home.

I hope not though. At least the father should be charged. He knows better.

Even the NRA says in their NRA Guide to the Basics of Personal Protection In The Home manual, Chapter 3:

"First and foremost, the storage method chosen must provide an adequate level of protection to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing the firearms."

the paragraph goes on to say:

"What is adequate in a home inhabited by a single person or a couple with no children might be wholly inadequate in a home in which numerous adults or children reside."

As a teen librarian, my wife conducts babysitter workshops several times a year. One of the things that's now stressed is for the babysitter to ask is if there are any unsecured guns in the house.
It's insane that we've come to this, but that's life in America now.

They mentioned the 911 call by the daughter, and how she was hysterical.

He has a gun safe. The electronic lock stopped working, so he put a gun in the nightstand? WTAF! That makes zero sense. And what a shocker, a 3 year old wandered into a room an pilfered. That NEVER happens with toddlers or kids of any age for that matter!!

I agree with it.

I can only say that guns are designed to hurl bullets at high velocity and in doing so cause injury, usually gravely, to the target, intentional or not. I read of so few "good guy with a gun" stories and so many tales of the wrong person being shot, killed.
If fear is what drives the treadmill of American gun violence, I only remind us all that fear is a poor counselor and we can't replace the lives lost to gun violence. I have no solutions, so I won't pretend...but, really? 3 years old and he shot himself because dad's gun wasn't secured, in the home of a trained LEO. Really.
(Please, forgive my veiled rancor.) Peace to all, may an answer to this madness come soon.

“I cannot imagine there’s anything in the law books that can punish that family more than what happened last night,” Chitwood said.

The parents will probably be let off with a warning.

Hopefully they get their "precious" back.

On to the next one....

The parents should be charged, and NEVER permitted to own a firearm again.

But this is America, and more specifically Florida, so I would expect little to happen, and for the parents to continue being "responsible" gun owners.

A 3 year old can pull a trigger, but not operate the slide to put a round in the chamber. Even if carried or just stored. No round in the chamber. That simple rule would save hundreds of lives every year. Takes less than a second to rack a round.

If one lives in an area where they feel they must have a round chambered, then they ought to move because that place where they are at is extremely dangerous. Not a place where one would leave a 16 y/o, a 7 y/o and a 3 y/o home by themselves.

children to reach. I guess they were smarter back then.

A toddler standing on a chair couldn't reach it.

Slide, click, slude. Under a second.
No need to have one in the tube, even if one just must have a handgun.
Extending the point a bit, he had a safe. In the event of a need to protect the family (supposedly) it would take MUCH longer to get it out of the safe than to load the chamber. So, why did the gun have one in the tube if he's such a responsible gun owner?

were Never gun people.

These are Horror gun stories we've been reading about.

Parental Neglect.. involuntary Toddler slaughter I would think.

This is my generic response to gun threads where people are shot and killed by the dumb or criminal possession of guns. For the record, I grew up in the South and on military bases. I was taught about firearms as a child, and I grew up hunting, was a member of the NRA, and I still own guns. In the 70’s, I dropped out of the NRA because they become more radical and less interested in safety and training. Some personal experiences where people I know were involved in shootings caused me to realize that anyone could obtain and posses a gun no matter how illogical it was for them to have a gun. Also, easy access to more powerful guns, guns in the hands of children, and guns that weren’t secured are out of control in our society. As such, here’s what I now think ought to be the requirements to possess a gun. I’m not debating the legal language, I just think it’s the reasonable way to stop the shootings. Notice, none of this restricts the type of guns sold. This is aimed at the people who shoot others, because it’s clear that they should never have had a gun.

1.) Anyone in possession of a gun (whether they own it or not) should have a regularly renewed license. If you want to call it a permit, certificate, or something else that's fine.
2.) To get a license, you should have a background check, and be examined by a professional for emotional and mental stability appropriate for gun possession. It might be appropriate to require that examination to be accompanied by references from family, friends, employers, etc. This check is not to subject you to a mental health diagnosis, just check on your superficial and apparent gun-worthyness.
3.) To get the license, you should be required to take a safety course and pass a test appropriate to the type of gun you want to use.
4.) To get a license, you should be over 21. Under 21, you could only use a gun under direct supervision of a licensed person and after obtaining a learner’s license. Your license might be restricted if you have children or criminals or other unsafe people living in your home. (If you want to argue 18 or 25 or some other age, fine. 21 makes sense to me.)
5.) If you possess a gun, you would have to carry a liability insurance policy specifically for gun ownership - and likely you would have to provide proof of appropriate storage, security, and whatever statistical reasons that emerge that would drive the costs and ability to get insurance.
6.) You could not purchase a gun or ammunition without a license, and purchases would have a waiting period.
7.) If you possess a gun without a license, you go to jail, the gun is impounded, and a judge will have to let you go (just like a DUI).
8.) No one should carry an unsecured gun (except in a locked case, unloaded) when outside of home. Guns should be secure when transporting to a shooting event without demonstrating a special need. Their license should indicate training and special carry circumstances beyond recreational shooting (security guard, etc.). If you are carrying your gun while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you lose your gun and license.
9.) If you buy, sell, give away, or inherit a gun, your license information should be recorded.
10.) If you accidentally discharge your gun, commit a crime, get referred by a mental health professional, are served a restraining order, etc., you should lose your license and guns until reinstated by a serious relicensing process.

Most of you know that a license is no big deal. Besides a driver’s license you need a license to fish, operate a boat, or many other activities. I realize these differ by state, but that is not a reason to let anyone without a bit of sense pack a semiautomatic weapon in public, on the roads, and in schools. I think we need to make it much harder for some people to have guns.

…to be allowed to have guns.

Do you just cut and paste that shit on every gun violence thread you come across?

People in other countries manage to exist without owning firearms. Most of them look upon America in complete horror at how we place more importance upon guns than the lives of others.

The framers of the Constitution would roll over in their graves knowing what a Shithole this country has become, due to the almighty 2nd Amendment.

Read this as a start: "The Second Amendment: A Biography"

Widely acclaimed at the time of its publication, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights.

At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman’s book provoked a wide range of discussion. This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers.

The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men—who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present. As the country spread to the Western frontier, violence spread too. But through it all, gun control was abundant. In the twentieth century, with Prohibition and gangsterism, the first federal control laws were passed. In all four separate times the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to own a gun.

The present debate picked up in the 1970s—part of a backlash to the liberal 1960s and a resurgence of libertarianism. A newly radicalized NRA entered the campaign to oppose gun control and elevate the status of an obscure constitutional provision. In 2008, in a case that reached the Court after a focused drive by conservative lawyers, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual right to gun ownership. Famous for his theory of “originalism,” Justice Antonin Scalia twisted it in this instance to base his argument on contemporary conditions.

In The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman shows that our view of the amendment is set, at each stage, not by a pristine constitutional text, but by the push and pull, the rough and tumble of political advocacy and public agitation.

And today's gun owners aren't part of a "well-regulated militia."

...there are lots of references to other sources.

...not a perfect solution, but something that would help.

He was just a Fucking MORON.

Are you going to make it difficult for MORONS to possess guns?

And there are plenty of "responsible" gun owners who have gone out and killed others. How are you going to make it difficult for them? Every gun killer started somewhere. There's always a 1st time, and nobody is considered dangerous before their 1st kill.

...and again. No system is perfect. It should be difficult for dangerous people to easily possess guns (and ammunition).

Lots of people are dangerous before they shoot the gun - and obviously so. Those people should not have easy access to guns. Besides toddlers, I would say that unsupervised teenagers, untrained gun users, diagnosed emotional people, and some convicted criminals.

When you possess a gun, buy a gun, use a gun, or purchase a gun - you should have a license obtained through a process. There are plenty of other ways in addition to a license that would reduce gun deaths, but a license is a good start.

It may be interesting to find out what kind of training, if any, the guy had. Practicing on the range is not the same as learning how to safely handle or secure a gun at home

And left the kid at home alone?

She'll now be fucked up the rest of her life because of this. Nobody will ever be able to convince her that she wasn't to blame.

America is sick with gunhumper fever

dead children are part of the cost

the 2nd Amendment is a national suicide pact

Fucking idiot Gunfuckers. I hate you all.

Pro-life, my ass. We allow this, and all mass shootings. We allow this.

enrages me. They need to spend some kind of serious time in jail.

They didn't leave a 3 year old home alone.

he's a corrections officer and still does not take precautions against this tragedy? If no one ever faces a consequence for this entirely preventable death of a child, they'll just keep happening. which they do.

this fucked up country. ARREST AND PROSECUTE THE PARENTS

A three year old can open carry with zero training. Can tuck it in the diaper and enjoy freedom. God given right.

.. RIP little baby boy. At the tender age of 3 you most likely had been exposed to, and had developed a curiosity about, mommy & daddy's embracement of the gun culture, perhaps to the exclusion of their embracement of you. They don't really sound like fine people to me.

Was it daddy & mommy's fetishizing of an inanimate, lethal object to the point of anthropomorphism ("Man, this baby can really lay down some firepower!" "She's a sweet little thang, my 9 miller-meter." ) that made you amble up to the nightstand and discover, unsecured, that around which their lives revolve? The center of their warped universe? Pure raw sex in cold blued steel?

Daddy probably would rather his gun be out in plain sight than his rubbers or blue pills .. same with mommy's lube and toyz. Guns .. sex. Sex .. guns. Sweet Jesus.

Live by the gun; die by the gun. Somebody (or sombodies) have to die, and your little name came up. It is grist for a Leonard Cohen song .. a very sad Leonard Cohen song. But he's dead too, and maybe hanging out in the Tower of Song.

I'm inured to it now .. it's so far away, in such a now-strange land (Florida). I'm tempered like the cold blued steel of the 9mm. But it will hit my family again .. gun violence. It already has X3 .. but it will hit again. Like a coming storm, I feel it in my old bones.

RIP little boy. RIP.

And fuck y'all, mommy & daddy. Fuck y'all.

Fuck gunhumpers.

I guarantee the majority of humpers will gladly pay the price for gun freedumb in vats of dead childrens' blood.

Back when my cohort was having babies (we are all in our 50s now with teens) I’d give the fathers AmSec push button mechanical lockboxes. We all had handguns for plinking and self defense.

One of my friends recently told me he still uses it.

They were $125 back then and now about $250. Money well spent and a lot more satisfying than buying cabinet safety locks.

How have they kept themselves safe if their kid is dead???

What is the point in having a gun to defend your family if they wind up dead from their own weapon??

Keep their guns is more important than kids killing themselves or their siblings. It's disgusting.