Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Houston Area Children are Dropping Like Flies Thanks to Guns in the Home

The Guardian

Six-year-old boy in critical condition on Monday after Codrick Beal, four, and unnamed three-year-old fatally shot themselves in earlier incidents.

Three young children have been shot accidentally in the Houston area in the past four days, two fatally from self-inflicted gunshots.

In the latest incident, a six-year-old boy was taken to hospital in critical condition after being shot by his five-year-old brother on Monday morning in north-east Harris County, police told reporters.

On Sunday, Codrick Beal, four, shot himself with a gun he found while staying with a family friend at a house in a northern suburb, while his mother celebrated her birthday.

Beal’s death followed that of an unnamed three-year-old boy, who died after shooting himself in the head at home in north-western Harris County on Friday afternoon.

“It’s just a terrible accident,” Leticia Beal, a cousin of Codrick’s mother, Ashley Beal, told the Houston Chronicle. “We see it all the time on the news but you never think it’ll hit home. It’s the most horrible thing.”

Another four-year-old boy died in a shooting incident in the west Houston suburb of Katy last November. Ryan Welch was shot in the face by a .40-calibre Smith & Wesson pistol found in a closet in the master bathroom of his home next to a BB gun and a machete, the Chronicle reported. It was not clear whether the boy or his six-year-old brother pulled the trigger.

On Monday, the Harris County sheriff’s office said investigations into the two fatal shootings last weekend were ongoing.

“If you are going to keep a firearm in your home it should ALWAYS be stored in a locked safe, gun vault, or storage case AND out of the reach of children,” the office said in a statement.

18 comments:


  1. As the Guardian mentions in its article, and we have discussed before on this blog, Texas DOES have a safe storage law.

    "Under Texas law, if a child under 17 years of age gains access to a readily dischargeable firearm (i.e., loaded with ammunition, whether or not a round is in the chamber), a person is criminally liable if he or she, “with criminal negligence:”
    Failed to secure the firearm (i.e., to take steps a reasonable person would take to prevent the access to a readily dischargeable firearm by a child, including but not limited to placing a firearm in a locked container or temporarily rendering the firearm inoperable by a trigger lock or other means); or
    Left the firearm in a place to which the person knew or should have known the child would gain access.1"

    http://smartgunlaws.org/child-access-prevention-in-texas/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Guess the law don't work worth a shit when most gun owners are fucking idiots.

    Those guns sure as fuck work real good though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kids are dying more than one a day and all SS can say is, but there is safe storage laws! I guess, as usual, gun loons are not following the law.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sammy, obviously you can have any number of laws in place, but if violations aren't prosecuted, then they don't have any effect. The gun control lobby's major goal seems to revolve around getting such laws passed. And here we have a state with a law already in place with at least a suggestion that the law isn't being prosecuted.
      This would be an excellent issue to hold to candidates' collective feet to the fire in upcoming elections for both county attorney and Sheriff. Either to get some assurances from an incumbent or a promise from a challenging candidate.
      The law is quite straightforward so it shouldn't be rocket science to take it to court.

      Delete
    2. So Sammy you propose what to fix this issue? More laws? What will make those laws more effective than the current laws?

      Delete
    3. Love the way you kill happy gun loons accept children's deaths and are happy to explain it away as laws not working. Laws you gun loons pay to lobby against and don't want. You are happy these laws aren't working and could care less if children are dying.

      Delete
    4. The reason many of these offenses are not prosecuted is because the powers that be in The Lone State tend to be Republican, conservative, gun nuts themselves. Gun culture permeates everything there.

      Delete
    5. So if the powers that be are permeated with gun culture and passed the safe storage law that is currently in force, wouldn't that suggest that they are also actually ok with also prosecuting violations of that law?
      That does bring up another interesting question. As I said earlier, the Texas law seems quite straight forward. Makes me wonder why the Everytown folks didn't think to model their legislation after the Texas law and sell it on its being from there. They could have even done a take off of the Pace picante sauce commercial to push it.

      Delete
    6. "Love the way you kill happy gun loons accept children's deaths and are happy to explain it away as laws not working. Laws you gun loons pay to lobby against and don't want. You are happy these laws aren't working and could care less if children are dying. "

      Who exactly here said anything about these events being acceptable? In fact, I suggested a way for citizens to hold officials accountable for not enforcing the law.
      As for your complaints about lobbying, this law is already in force and was passed in a state in which the gun culture permeates the power structure.
      As JimF asked earlier, do you have a solution? Something a bit more detailed than throwing blame and names about?

      Delete
    7. Sorry Sammy - I didn't catch the solution part in your response. What is your solution to solving these gun deaths?

      Delete
    8. It's you gun loons who are trying to stop such laws as safe storage, that's the idiocy of your side, which promotes children getting killed.

      Delete
    9. There is no 100% solution, but if gun loons would follow the law that would help, but of course they won't, and justify that with some perverted definition of the 2nd A.

      Delete
    10. I have a solution, but I'm afraid even it's not 100%

      Proper gun control laws.

      http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2014/09/proper-gun-control-laws-not-exhaustive.html

      Delete
    11. I was wandering tonight and came upon this article which speaks directly to my earlier comment regarding the importance of not merely having a law on the books, but prosecution when the law is violated. One thing that surprised me was the fact that Florida passed the first child access prevention law back in 1989, just a couple of years after they passed their shall issue carry law.

      Texas rarely prosecutes people who fail to secure their guns from children, according to a newspaper review of Department of Public Safety statistics.

      "Gun owners can be charged with a misdemeanor in Texas if they fail to secure their firearms or leave them in a place that a child can access. But the child access prevention, or CAP, law is rarely applied in Texas, the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday.
      Authorities have arrested more than 200 people accused of making a firearm accessible to a child since 1995, when that section of the Texas penal code was enacted, but there have been only 61 convictions, DPS figures show."

      "Florida was the first state to pass a CAP law in 1989, which paved a way to prosecute gun owners if unsupervised children got hold of a firearm and shot themselves or someone else."

      "Nationally, the total number of unintentional gun deaths has fallen significantly over the last 25 years, Vernick said."

      http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Review-Texas-Rarely-Prosecutes-Adults-When-Kids-Access-Guns-297881721.html

      Delete
    12. dammit....

      http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Review-Texas-Rarely-Prosecutes-Adults-When-Kids-Access-Guns-297881721.html

      Delete
    13. Why do you think that is? I think it's because gun-fights fanatics run through the entire system, from street cops to judges to prosecutors. And, of course, most of the offenders are white.

      Delete
    14. "I think it's because gun-fights fanatics run through the entire system, from street cops to judges to prosecutors."

      Your assertion sort of shots holes in the gun con control lobby's claim that a very large percentage of citizens support such "common sense" gun laws. Especially since at least at a local level, prosecutors and Sheriffs are elected officials and Police Chiefs are hired by elected officials, namely a city council.
      In fact, this is an area where the MOMs and Everytown could get a lot of bang for Bloomberg's bucks so to speak. Run local candidates who would campaign on the issue of prosecuting such laws. The tough on crime angle is always a standard go to in these types of contests. They could even point to local instances of the law not being enforced if there are any.
      It would be something that Bloomberg could easily fund since most local contests don't run to high dollars either. Hell, I might even vote for such a candidate considering my feelings in regards to adult responsibilities in securing firearms.
      But for some reason, once such a law is passed you never seem to hear of the MOMs taking local governments to task for not enforcing these laws. Instead, they like to try to push around private businesses who don't conform to their standards by not banning lawful carry in their venues.
      I wonder how the prosecution levels are in states with strict gun laws as opposed to those like Texas and Florida. I'll try to look into that. Anyone else seen anything in regards to this?

      Delete
    15. "Your assertion sort of shots holes in the gun con control lobby's claim that a very large percentage of citizens support such "common sense" gun laws. "

      In Texas I'm sure we have a different breakdown than in NY, for example.

      Delete