January 2, 2015 8:06 AM

A 2-year-old shoots and kills his mother: Tragedy? Or natural selection at work?

HAYDEN, Idaho — The details are shatteringly ordinary. A 2-year-old toddler, sitting in a shopping cart in a Walmart, his mother’s purse unattended and within reach as she shopped. Three girls, all under age 11 — relatives of the boy and his mother, the police said — tagging along. A frosty morning in the northern Idaho panhandle, the temperature in the teens. Holiday break. The clothing aisles near electronics, back of the store. Then, shortly before 10:20 a.m. on Tuesday, as the store video cameras recorded the scene, the little boy found a gun in his mother’s purse and it discharged once at near point-blank range from where she stood, less than arm’s length away, said Lt. Stu Miller, a spokesman for the Kootenai County sheriff’s office. She died at the scene, he said, her death appearing to be accidental.

It’s a scenario that might be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. A two-year-old finds a loaded gun in his mother’s purse, one thing leads to another, and before anyone really knew what had even happened, the mother was dead. It’s unlikely the boy even knew what he’d done…and once he’s old enough to understand, he’ll have to live for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he killed his mother.

This story, and so many others like it, represents everything that’s wrong with today’s gun culture. Gun advocates believe they have the absolute right to carry whatever firepower they wish wherever they may wish to carry it…but little if any thought appears to have been given to things like safety. Why would a mother of a small child think it appropriate to carry a loaded pistol in her purse? What possible threat could she have felt the need to protect herself from that she’d place her own safety and, more importantly, those of her children at risk?

The death of Veronica Jean Rutledge is a tragedy, of that there can be no doubt. It’s also a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. There’s simply no reason why a mother would nee to carry a loaded weapon into a Walmart store when accompanied by children. That’s as irresponsible and ignorant as it is tragic…but this is exactly the sort of things that gun advocates conveniently choose to ignore. Stupid decisions can have terrible consequences, especially when loaded weapons fall into the hands of children not old enough to understand what they’ve found. Now a husband has lost his wife, and children their mother because of…well, I’m not sure there’s a sound, sensible explanation to be found.

More guns DON’T make us safer. More guns only ensures that we’ll see more stories like this, which we do on an almost daily basis. How many more people will have to audition for a Darwin Award…or do gun advocates just consider tragedies like this to be merely the cost of freedumb?

[Father-in-law Terry] Rutledge isn’t just sad — he’s angry. Not at his grandson. Nor at his dead daughter-in-law, “who didn’t have a malicious fiber in her body,” he said. He’s angry at the observers already using the accident as an excuse to grandstand on gun rights.

“They are painting Veronica as irresponsible, and that is not the case,” he said. “… I brought my son up around guns, and he has extensive experience shooting it. And Veronica had had hand gun classes; they’re both licensed to carry, and this wasn’t just some purse she had thrown her gun into.”

Sorry, but this isn’t “grandstanding.” Asking a legitimate question- WHY did Mrs. Rutledge think it appropriate to have a handgun in her purse while in a Walmart?- is neither grandstanding nor inappropriate. Gun supporters have a wonderful facility for seeing any questions regarding their conducts as being expressive of a desire to curtail their “rights.” Asking for common sense to reign is to imperil no one’s rights…save for the senseless.

To call Mrs. Rutledge “irresponsible” doesn’t go nearly far enough. I’d believe this to be a criminal act…if she hadn’t been the victim. No matter what her father-in-law says, it doesn’t get much more irresponsible than carrying a gun into a Walmart while accompanying children. This is what happens when gun owners feel their right to own and carry weapons transcends all other rights and responsibilities. This is NOT what responsible gun owners do. Responsible gun owners understand what can happen when you combine small children and handguns in a public place. Responsible gun owners behave responsibly. There’s nothing about this tragedy that speaks of responsibility.

I’m saddened that a child lost his mother and a husband his wife through stupidity and irresponsibility. I by no means wish to exploit what can only be called a (preventable) tragedy, but this is not what the 2nd Amendment is about. If society refuses to do the right thing and enact common sense gun control, this sort of thing will continue to happen. Every day brings a parade of similar stories, and if gun advocates gave a damn about safety and human life, they’ll drop their opposition to anything that even smacks of gun control.

Common sense can save lives. It might have even saved Mrs. Rutledge, and a two-year-old boy wouldn’t have to live his life knowledge that he accidentally killed his mother.

This tragedy didn’t need to happen…unless you happen to consider this sort of thing to be the cost of freedom, and if you do, I’d submit that you’re a horrible excuse for a human being.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 2, 2015 8:06 AM.

You know you have too much time on your hands when this seems like a good idea was the previous entry in this blog.

Y'all have a strange way of demonstrating your commitment to the sanctity of marriage is the next entry in this blog.

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