This brief and sad article on the TV3 website just caught my eye. It's about the death of an 8 year old boy in the US by accidental shooting at a gun fair. The child was handling an Uzi at the time.
In light of the tragedy, according to the news article, Police are 'looking into whether the boy had parental consent to be handling the weapon, and whether the gun-fair broke the law'.
That's right. Rather than asking what kind of perverse culture allows a child to handle a submachine gun at a public event, Police are asking whether the child had parental permission to hold the gun which killed him.
Priorities, people.
4 comments:
I hate to be the guy bitching about process, but is "asking what kind of perverse culture allows a child to handle a submachine gun at a public event" the police's job?
I'd say it's everyone's job. I found it odd that the article reported the Police's response, as opposed to probing the broader issues this sort of incident raises about public safety, gun control, welfare of children, etc.
And let's not pretend you hate bitching about process, Hugh ... ;-)
Personally I'm not comfortable with the idea of the police fulminating about whether the laws they enforce are good laws, because they might often reach conclusions that aren't shared by the public in general, particularly around issues such as sexual violence or civil rights.
I agree that the newspaper is taking an extremely legalist approach to the issue (which they would doubtless call 'just reporting the facts'). But the sad fact is that gun laws are a dead letter politically in the USA, even more than they were at the beginning of the Bush era - and that's less to do with Bush aggressively pushing firearms legislation and more to do with the Democrats putting it in the 'too hard' box.
"Naughty, Timmy! What did Mummy tell you about playing with the Uzi? Remember Timmy, we talked about it at your birthday and you said; Mummy, when can I give up the 308 and start using an Uzi like a real man?, That's right! Not till you're at least nine"
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