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(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
A man was killed when an AR-15 rifle he had just stolen from a Polk County farm discharged Sunday morning, police said.Do you get the impression the guns were left in the vehicle? In that case would the owner of the guns and vehicle bear any responsibility?
Deputies responding to the report of a gunshot victim in the 5600 block of Halls Ferry Road found the suspect, 19-year-old Genaro Hernandez Mendoza of West Salem, dead inside a farm truck, said Polk County Sheriff's Office Detective John Williams.
Investigators learned that the truck had been stolen from a home on Independence Highway earlier that morning, along with a rifle, a shotgun and several other items.
"The evidence showed that while Hernandez Mendoza was driving away from the scene he was the victim of an accidental, self-inflicted gun shot wound from the rifle he had just taken."
Williams added that the AR-15 rifle and the shotgun were both angled with their butts on the floorboard and their barrels pointed upward, toward the driver's seat. On the bumpy farm road, the bolt head of the shotgun apparently bumped against the rifle's trigger, firing one shot that hit the suspect and exited through the roof.
In other words, is it within the bounds of gun safety to leave guns in a vehicle?
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Does the rightful owner of the vehicle and firearms bear any responsibility for some lowlife stealing the same and then getting killed? Not in the slightest. Knucklehead would still be alive (maybe) if he hadn't stolen someone else's property.
ReplyDeleteHe would also be alive is some irresponsible gun owner didn't leave guns in the car.
DeleteI don't see where it says the guns had been left in the truck. The story says they were stolen from a farm, along with the truck. Could have been in the farm house. Jumping to conclusions again, Mike?
DeleteAs for the responsibility, it all belongs to the idiot who stole the guns. He made several bad decisions, and paid the price. And managed to do that without hurting anyone else.
You act as though that matters. Let's say that I have a car that sprays cyanide into the cab after five minutes. It would still be my car. If I allow you to borrow it, I need to tell you about its quirk. But if you steal it from me, you're on your own.
DeleteNo Mikey, he would be alive if he weren't a fucking thief....
DeleteThe person who owned the farm is not responsible for the criminal actions of a criminal, period.
ReplyDeleteAnd leaving firearms locked in a vehicle (and ideally out of view) is not irresponsible.
Even if a homeowner keeps their firearms in a safe, a determined criminal can still acquire them. The criminal can simply wait for the homeowner to return and threaten to kill the owner if the owner fails to open the safe.
"And leaving firearms locked in a vehicle (and ideally out of view) is not irresponsible." I disagree.
DeleteWhat if they're not out of view? Is the gun owner then partly responsible?
The owner is not responsible even if the guns were laid out on white linen on a table. Get it? Property on an owner's property does not belong to someone else. The thief is solely responsible for stealing and any consequences that follow.
DeleteWrong Greg. The thief may be 100% responsible for the theft but the gun owner may be responsible for failure to secure the firearms properly. You want to focus on the first one in order to allow the gun owner to get away with gross negligence and irresponsibility.
DeleteNonsense, Mike. If he steals an axe from my shed and uses it to kill my neighbor, am I responsible for that? Suppose he steals a chef's knife from my kitchen and commits a murder with that? A lug wrench from my trunk and bludgeons my neighbor to death? The principle is the same, so where shall we stop? I propose we stop here: If it is not his and he chooses to take it, he bears sole responsibility for the harm he causes.
DeleteIf axes or kitchen knives were involved in 30,000 deaths a year perhaps there'd be some interest in mandating safe storage for them. But, we're talking about guns. If you fail to secure your gun and a kid or a thief gets it, you are responsible for having failed to secure the gun properly. Why would you want to shirk your responsibility?
DeleteNo, mike. We're actually talking about principles and concepts. This is part of the conflict between those who advocate for more freedom and those who advocate for less. The principles they support are fundamentally different and often mutually opposed. It is impossible to maximize liberty while simultaneously engaging in ever increasing control. The two are incompatible.
DeleteThere is no security/storage system a human can devise that another human cannot defeat. Over time, the means of defeating them become increasingly available. As a result, there is no end to the "safe storage" requirements that might be required once we accept the idea that mandating such a thing is reasonable. Beyond that, is this: the thief, and the thief alone, was responsible for his actions and the consequences, including his subsequent death.
ReplyDelete