Florida Man Charged in Child's Self-Inflicted Shooting Death

Jaleel Taylor

Local news reports

A toddler playing alone in a Frenchtown home accidentally shot himself in the face Dec. 29 and now his uncle is facing charges in his death.

The child and his mother were at his maternal grandmother's home in the 800 block of Dover Street visiting with family when the incident occurred, according to the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Jaleel Taylor, 20, was outside when he heard the sound a gunshot from inside the house, according to court documents. He went back inside and found his nephew, 3-year-old Raymond Gaines Jr., on the floor with a gunshot wound, court documents said.

Tallahassee Police Department officers arrived and found Gaines lying on the floor in Taylor's bedroom with a gunshot wound to the face and another injury to the back of his head. An autopsy determined the child died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Taylor told officers the gun was his and that he normally kept it in a box. Officers found his silver .380 semi-automatic gun with the serial number removed in a shoebox, court documents said.

The grandmother said she no knowledge the gun was in the house, according to a DCF incident report.

Police searched the home and found 233 grams of marijuana as well. Taylor turned himself in at the Leon County Jail on Wednesday night on charges of culpable negligence, possession of a firearm by a delinquent and possession of a firearm with the serial number removed.

How in the world was this guy not arrested on the spot? He had to turn himself in 10 days later?

U.S. Teens Have Same Firearm Access Regardless Of Suicide Risk

Huffington Post

U.S. teens report easy access to firearms, even when they have mental health problems that put them at an increased risk of suicide, according to a new study.

Overall, 41 percent of teens who reported being in a home with a firearm had easy access to it. Among teens with a history of mental illness or suicidal acts, researchers found that percentage was the same.

The American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics advise healthcare providers to talk about firearm safe STORAGE with parents - especially those with at-risk youths at home.

"Our goal of this study was to find out if those recommendations were being implemented effectively in the community," said Dr. Joseph Simonetti, the study's lead author from the University of Washington School of Medicine's Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Simonetti and his colleagues write in JAMA Psychiatry that suicide is the second leading cause of death for U.S. teens. Having a firearm in the home is one risk factor for suicide, they add.

Previous studies have found a lower suicide risk among residents of homes that practice safe storage of firearms.

For the new study, the authors used data collected between 2001 and 2004 from 10,123 U.S. teens between ages 13 and 18 years.

A third of the teens reported living in a home with a firearm. Of those, about 41 percent said they had easy access to that firearm and the ability to shoot it.

Florida Man Commits Triple Murder - "He Just Snapped"

George Mason III

Local news reports

His half-brother Gabriel "Bo" Taylor lived there with their mother Tracy Taylor and their 81-year-old grandmother, Jannie V. Taylor. So did Tracey's other son, Ralph Peyton.

"He was here every day," Donna Stanley, who lives across the street, said about Mason as she stood in the middle of the road Saturday morning. "He'd be here right now."

Instead, the 42-year-old Lutz man with a lengthy criminal record was in the hospital under police guard, accused of one of the most horrific shooting rampages in the city's history.

Police say Mason fatally shot Peyton, Jannie Taylor and Tarasha Yata Townsend, his 37-year-old girlfriend and mother of two of his daughters. Gabriel Taylor, 33, was critically wounded.

According to investigators, Mason chased Gabriel Taylor to the nearby corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Main Street and shot him multiple times with a 9 mm handgun. Almost in the same moment, Mason was struck by a Dodge pickup truck heading east on MLK.

Mason and Taylor were taken to Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, where Taylor underwent surgery, Brooksville Police Chief George Turner said. Taylor was in guarded condition Saturday night. Mason has a broken back, broken leg and a broken arm, Turner said. No condition was available.

Simple question

The problem with the gun control, or whatever the fuck you want to call the act of regulating firearms, has become so bogged down in bullshit.

But, it really boils down to a simple question:
Do you want people who will misuse firearms to have access to them?

This is a simple yes or no question without room for hemming and hawing about "how good guns are" blahblahblahblahblah

Do you want a criminal to have access to a firearm?
Do you want someone who will use the gun for an illegal act (murder, robbery, etc.) to have access to a firearm?

Yes or no?

No shades of grey that "this inconveniences law abiding citizens" because law abiding citizens are even more inconvenienced when disqualified persons have access to a firearm.

And there is no "right" for disqualified persons to have a gun unless you are on the side that people who will misuse them should have access to them and let society be damned.

Someone said that people on the gun rights side are intelligent.  Maybe they are.  But, intelligence is different from ignorance as I often point out.  In fact, they are so intelligent that they can argue that black is white.

That is why this is a simple yes or no question: not an essay question.  I don't want to hear how society benefits from people who shouldn't have guns having them.

If deep in your heart you answered "yes", then you are for gun control: whether you believe in it or not.

This is a major point that a lot of responsible gun owners and firearm reform advocates should be able to agree on. Some of the more militant of the so-called "gun rights" activists completely fail to see (or acknowledge) that one of the issues can be boiled down to "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." There is no rational argument against this simple concept:  don't let the bad guy have a gun in the first place.

Don't forget criminals as well!