On Saturday, a 2-year-old North Carolina girl was playing in her house when she found her father’s loaded handgun hidden under the couch. She grabbed the gun, shot herself, and died later that day. On Sunday, the girl’s father, a 19-year-old felon named Melvin Clark, was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
I’m glad Clark was charged, and I hope he’s convicted. The speed with which charges were brought against Clark is somewhat surprising, given that, as the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer has reported, there have been several unintentional shootings in the Fayetteville area recently that have not resulted in charges. In March, a Robeson County man was cleaning his shotgun when it unexpectedly discharged, killing his 10-year-old son; it does not appear that charges were ever brought against him. (I’ve contacted the district attorney’s office, and will update this post when I get a definite answer.) That same month, a Columbus County man was playing with his gun when it suddenly discharged, injuring his friend; no charges were filed. In 2011, a Tabor City, N.C., man fired a rifle he thought was unloaded. It wasn’t, and the bullet went through the walls of his house and into a neighbor’s yard, striking three people, one of whom later died.The man was never charged.
These cases involved adults, not children, so they’re not directly comparable to this past weekend’s shooting. But the broader point still stands: Except in rare circumstances, guns don’t just magically go off on their own. So-called accidental discharges can generally be ascribed to carelessness on the part of the gun owner. The state can encourage compliance with gun safety protocols by charging those people whose failure to follow them results in injury or death. That’s one reason why I support prosecuting gun-owning parents whose children die or are injured in unintentional shootings: to send a message to other gun-owning parents, and hopefully encourage them to take gun safety more seriously. But that message gets muddled if the laws are inconsistently enforced.
Or are written in such a way that they are meant to be hard to enforce.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, one needs to allow the organisation charged with enforcement the powers to be able to do that job effectively instead of demonising it.
The author makes a very valid point regarding negligent discharges, and is asking good questions of the prosecutors. The reason Mr. Clark was arrested and charged so quickly was that he's a felon.
ReplyDeleteI get very tired of the "didn't know it was loaded" excuse. The Blackman case looks like it might have truly been an accidental discharge as oppose to a negligent discharge. There have been several similar events with the same model rifle and I believe there are some civil suits files. The fact that the charges were dropped after the rifle being examined by the FBI also supports that.
Are you really suggesting mechanical failure?
Delete"The FBI also was asked to test the Remington Model 700 rifle that fired the deadly bullet.
ReplyDeleteAs prosecutors waited and investigators worked, the rifle waited in line at an FBI lab, David said.
"I can't control the timeframe of testing at the FBI," David said.
In correspondence dated March 28 and received by David early this month, the results of those lab tests were shown.
David would not talk specifically about what the test showed, or how the gun fired, citing the possibility of a civil lawsuit."
http://m.fayobserver.com/articles/2013/04/22/1252234
Considering that the charges were dropped after the report from the FBI came back, it seems likely. As I said, there have been other lawsuits in the works claiming this rifle is subject to accidental discharge.
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2013/10/25/idaho-lawsuit-latest-claim-against-remington/i7lOmpNLx43ruoEDzh3AQJ/story.html