10-Year-Old Virginia Girl Dead - 13-Year-old Brother Shot Her - No Charges

 
 The obituary of Maggie Hollifield, 10, calls her death a "tragic accident." So does the commonwealth's attorney.

The Hook

The next morning, he was making a modification to the gun and had taken out the shells but forgot one in the chamber. In cycling shells through the gun to make sure it was working, the firearm discharged and struck Maggie, who was standing behind a love seat upon which their 9-year-old sibling was sitting.

"The 13-year-old did not recall pulling the trigger but acknowledged that his hand would have been near the trigger at the time," writes Lunsford.

The brother and older sister ran to a neighbor's house, where the neighbor called 911 and the children called their mother.

Paul Hollifield told the police that his son normally was very cautious about the gun and that he trusted his son, who had taken a hunter's safety course, with the weapon.

There were no conflicts between the siblings, reports Lunsford, and Hollifield describes his son as "tender-hearted." Lunsford determined that the shooting was accidental, and there was no probable cause for charging the teen with involuntary manslaughter.

She also determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge the parents with neglect or abuse of the children, or of recklessly leaving a firearm unsecured.

For once the comments were not dominated by gun nuts expressing their heartfelt sorry combined with a defensive justification of the responsible adults. This by Amy Lemley:

This is heartbreaking. This entire family will suffer needlessly for the manslaughter this boy committed. I say needlessly because the parents did not need to give their 13-year-old child a gun. It is fine with me if they don't file charges against the child. But I wish it were possible to file charges against the parents--for what, I don't know. For whatever they possibly could, I suppose. Why would they ever, despite the child's "gun safety class," allow him to do anything at all with his gun outside their presence? Or in the presence of the other children? Pointing the gun at them, however inadvertently? That is a 13-year-old's mistake. Other, older people might make that mistake too. But this entire thing could have been avoided if the parents used a little sense. I am sad and angry about this turn of events. I hope they have learned their lesson. My opinion, by the way, has little to do with gun control laws, and more to do with the laws governing minors and parents' responsibility for them. They are grieving, deeply. And they should also be ashamed of themselves.