The mother is clearly at least partially to blame. I mean seriously, you are holding a gun that suddenly discharges, and you don't immediately drop everything and make sure it is no longer loaded???
On top of that, you point the gun at your son???

I mean, I support gun control as well, but this is Darwin award worthy.

Jesus.

I am sorry but that has to be some of the most pathetic excuses that I ever heard. No matter if the gun is somehow faulty. One should never ever have gun with a live round in the chamber near a love one. This is gun safety 101. The gun should had been empty and the safety put on immediately if there was an accidental discharge, even an accidental discharge by a person should receive the riot act for their actions..

It really sounds like she is making excuses, from it looks like some sort of fight with her son

The only reason the 2nd amendment was written was to codify into law, at the behest of the slave states, the hunting of escaped slaves. That is the ONLY meaning of "well regulated militia".
The 2nd is an anachronism left over from our slave owning past. It serves absolutely zero purpose in modern day society, and the only purpose it served when written was an evil one - the hunting and murdering of Africans.
It's time to repeal it.

@3: i'm confused. can you have a gun with a live round in the chamber near an acquaintance or a stranger then?

Maybe we should do an Initiative ?

What a fucking nightmare our 2nd Amendment-twisting nation has become.

@4 Repeal. Yes.

A well designed gun would not discharge unintentionally or when handled by a child. That we have few well designed guns available on the market is due in large part to the immunity which gun manufacturers have from civil lawsuits. Until we demand better we will continue to hear stories of guns going off accidentally, during cleaning, and when handled by children.

However, this story is just fucking pathetic. What kind of person hugs their son with a loaded handgun in their hand? Let alone a malfunctioning loaded handgun?

Yeah... I know where you are going Goldy. Somewhat rightly so. But this is gun safety 101 as stated above. NEVER EVER carry that thing loaded unless you are using it, or have a careful and safe place to holster for the single purpose of protection. She screwed up very bad and it is very very tragic. This is a glaring example of the type of firearm training everyone who owns a gun should have.

We could argue about how that fits in any gun legislation but that's another conversation.

Yeah "gun safety 101" doesn't seem to be working. Let's change the course number to "Gun Safety 544, Advanced Topics in Firearm Safety Philosophy" and cover the complicated stuff like "don't point a misfiring pistol at the heads of loved ones" (or better yet "hey dumb fuck, you don't need a gun theory").

@11 - Yes!!

I can't even imagine what I would do if I had shot someone, let alone my own child.

@5 I never had a loaded gun pointed at anyone or close to them with a live round in the chamber.. If there is an accidental discharge of a firearm, the person would immediately receive the riot act for making a very unsafe and lethal situation. if there was an accidental discharge, the first thing to do is empty the goddamn magazine and get the frickin live bullet out of the chamber.

Her explanation sounds like total bullshit. It sounds like there was some sort of altercation, given there was a two shots. I wouldn't be surprise that there is nothing wrong with the gun.. I think it is idiotic to hug someone with an empty gun in one's hand.

Cue the gun nuts: everyone's fault, but the gun.

No reason to change the slave-assassinating Second Amendment.

Freedom! For every gun -- not so much those shot, or their grieving families.

@5. If one is going to have a bullet in chamber of a firearm with the safety off, they are already showing they are going to use imminent lethal force, or they are so reckless, they had created an dangerous environment for anyone to get hurt.

I basically don't believe her story, given why would in the world she report this to the press, when the police haven't finished their investigation. I am going to speculate they will find the gun was fine. Even if the gun was defective, what in the world was she even doing walking in her house with a live round in the barrell?!?!?!?!?

Yea if you have a malfunctioning firearm you shouldn’t be keeping it loaded, much less carrying it around.

A magazine should have absolutely nothing to do with causing a accidental discharge. That is like saying that the tires on a car are keeping it from starting.

And so she had a gun that is randomly firing and she puts it in a positron where it is pointed to her sons head?

This seems really really fishy.

@4
Even if you could repeal the bill of rights it does not change the fact that armed self defense is a human right.

But hey you named yourself after a mass murdering socialist dictator, it really shows where you stand.

Hrm, the 17 yo stepson is killed by the gun discharging on its own. Remaining brothers are 19 and 21 (old enough to be kicked out of the house just fine).

Broken families help faulty guns kill.

Guns don't kill people. But stupid people with guns (80% of gun owners) sure fucking do. At least they're more likely to kill their own first.

Suspicious.....

Expert: Gun firing on its own 'impossible'
http://www.wtoc.com/story/24523308/exper…
WAFF spoke to a gun expert about the possibility of a gun firing on its own. The licensed gunsmith we spoke to was in law enforcement for nearly 20 years. He did not wish to be identified because he is often called to testify in cases such as this, and this particular case is an ongoing investigation.

The gunsmith did describe the operating system for Cobra .380 caliber pistols like the one involved in the fatal shooting. Regarding the claim the gun went off by itself, he said that is impossible.

A device called a sear holds the firing pin in the cocked position until enough pressure is placed on the trigger to move the transfer bar down to release the firing pin. The gun expert said the only other way besides pulling the trigger to fire the gun is if the sear is extremely worn and the gun is jarred, possibly if it was dropped and hit the ground hard.

Decatur Police have not filed charges, but the grand jury could send down an indictment. The gun involved in Kedrick Bowman's death has been sent for forensic testing, the results of which will be presented to a grand jury.

@ 17, "Even if you could repeal the bill of rights it does not change the fact that armed self defense is a human right."

I see you did glean something from our conversation of last month. Good work.

Watching all the gun nuts fall all over themselves to distance them from the gun nut that couldn't follow the goddamn rules is hilarious- it's basically the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy playing out but with guns. "That gun nut is dangerous and can't handle firearms, but of course I sure can!"

But my condolences to the woman and her family. There's nothing laughable about her situation.

Maybe it's just because I'm reading Game of Thrones right now, but this seems like a very likely case of murder.

Yeahhhhhhhhh there's so much fucked up with this story.

"She said she commented to her husband that they needed to take the gun back, and that someone would probably call the police after hearing the gunshot."

Convenient.

Then she pointed the gun at his head for a "hug".

Wait, so her gun accidentally went off and instead of just realizing the thing was a ticking time bomb and tossing it in the sea she kept it around, and loaded?

Why are you walking from your car to your house with gun in hand? Where the fuck do you live? Baghdad? And then after it mysteriously went off you kept it in your hand, loaded still for who knows the fuck why while you hugged your son?

Also, I'm no ergonomist or whatever, but the articulation of your hands while hugging someone would make it kinda sorta hard to also shoot them in the chest. That would be like hugging someone with the knuckles of your clenched fist up against their ribcage.

This story is actually too dumb to be true, and that's an accomplishment. I call mega BS.

The Second Amendment was offered as a sop to the Southern Plantation and slave owners who wanted to organize parties (militias) to track down, capture, torture and kill their runaway slaves. The idea that the amendment had something to do with preserving individual liberty is manufactured bullshit.

Fuck the Gun Fetish Death Cult.

@23, She seemed to spinning this to make her the victim, rather than her son.

I firmly believe in gun control, given the idiocy of having something like 250 million or more firearms in the US doesn't make any sense, and the Second Amendment was a response to Article 1 of the US Constitution to give Congress the right to raise a National Army.

There are responsible gun owners, I may not agree with them with their batshit insane interpretation of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, but there are those who don't point guns loaded or empty at anyone, knowing a pointing a gun at someone could be lethal.

The Step mother's interpretation just sounds like lies, or highly highly implausible if true. She walks into a house with a loaded weapon after it accidentally misfires. She will be charge with at least manslaughter for her recklessness, if her story is somehow true.

@25,

He was shot in the head.

@23,
lol. Yes, Bran Stark fell while climbing. Darn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOgsbTSVL…

I'm sick of the phrase 'gun nuts.' Just for a month say, can we say 'gun crazies' or 'gun jerks?'

I've reposted it so many times, and it never effects the gun nuts a whit, so I'm not going to even bother to google it again, but..

Statistically, having a gun in the house increases the likelihood by dozens of factors that someone in that house will be maimed or killed, NO MATTER THE SAFETY TRAINING, OR HOW THE GUNS ARE STORED.

So, gun nuts enjoy the mayhem and murder that goes along with your penis substitute toys.

Unfortunately, the rest of us can get sucked into your lethal stupidity.

No offense downtown judybrown, but your preaching to the choir.

@31,
having a car in your driveway or biking in a trafficked street probably does the same to your life expectancy. Most of us don't live our lives in bubbles and there's shades of risk.

@33: We're sold the idea of having a gun for protection, when that's counterfactual. We're not sold that cars will make us live longer, we're sold that they are a way of commuting from point a to point b faster.

@33

Chef Joe, just as you would expect a dishwasher or a waiter to not simply say Joe, but address you as Chef Joe, perhaps you can remember Ms Brown's preferred moniker- Downtown Judybrown. Just so we can keep Slog protocol civil.

@22
No self respecting "gun nut" would own, much less carry a Cobra .380. Though usually the issue with the Cobra is that it doesn't shoot, also the cast zinc frame tends to crack. I would not consider it to be safe to carry.

@26
Nice historical revisionism, looks like you were spoon-fed some Frankfurt style cultural Marxism.

Yea it couldn’t of had anything to do with the fact that the founders had just fought an armed revolution against an oppressive government. Or that an armed population was necessary to secure liberty as stated numerous times in the Federalist papers.

@31
Safety training does reduce accidents. For example the Washington State Hunter Safety program has reduced hunting deaths to almost zero per year.

To say that safety training doesn’t make a difference is asinine. Mandatory gun safety training in school would do far more to save lives than name calling and wishing that all the guns would disappear.

Fuck the 2nd ammendment, it's not meant for 2014.

ummm... I always greet family members by pointing a loaded pistol at their head. It's like tradition or something.

@20

Oh, a single police officer said something empirical without any data to back it up. I buy that completely.

@36 "looks like you were spoon-fed some Frankfurt style cultural Marxism"

Even if he is wrong, which I believe leans towards wrong, this statement is plain fucking retarded.

"Yea it couldn’t of had anything to do with the fact that the founders had just fought an armed revolution against an oppressive government. Or that an armed population was necessary to secure liberty as stated numerous times in the Federalist papers"

AAAAAAnd, you're just retarded.

Here's a proper refutation, you Ron Paul loving white nationalist (ie. white supremacist): https://portside.org/2013-01-25/2nd-amen…

"Safety training does reduce accidents."

You must have some hard line statistics thar. Then again, he doesn't either. So how about we just agree that you're both fuckwits?

HEY GUN NUTS: stop with the Gun Safety 101 talk. There is no Gun Safety 101 because you refuse to allow regulation requiring classes and certification before owning any kind of firearm under any condition.

Gun nut death cult.

@37

I admire your brevity. From my experience with the gun debate, people who write very little on blogs save their lengthy explanations for face-to-face dialogue with NRA members.

My new favorite meme is Gun Fetish Death Cult

its almost a like button for slog commenters

@42 What's that supposed to mean? Think you're being clever? Think you're being intimidating?

Tell you what, gather up some NRA members so you'll have safety in numbers, and bring them to Drinking Liberally some week for a face-to-face. You know where to find me.

Over at NRA HQ their first order of business now is to write a law shielding gun manufacturers from lawsuits when their defective guns kill people.

Because Freedom.™

@36: The Washington State Hunting Safety Program probably helped reduce hunting accidents. But I'd bet that zoning the I-90 corridor and Middle Fork (Washington's highest-traffic trails) as No Shooting had a bigger impact.

Seriously, Fall is nuts between Issaquah and Ellensburg. Hiking along Tinkham Road a couple years ago I had a pair of hillbillies hop out the woods to shout at me "you fucking tree-huggers come out here on purpose to scare off the deer!" You're a 1/4 mile from I-90 on a forest service road, but it's my fault for spooking your buck? How about lace up your fucking boots and get out in the woods? Or is it just too much work if the deer isn't 50 ft from the road?

Now I'm friends with plenty of responsible hunters/gun owners. But people are fucking morons, and a government of the people has every business regulating public spaces to ensure the safety of its constituents.

@44, come now Goldy. You know it's illegal for them to carry their weapons into a 21 and over bar.

Maybe you should meet up for your debate at the local firing range.

Well, I'm sure the new spring she got for the gun is a good one. Third time's a charm.

Dear kid,

Sorry for your stupid parents.

I sure hope no charges are brought. I'm sure she's suffered enough already.

Cascadian Pig @ 36...

Here's some history for your cracker ass...

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the…

@43 I like the term Gun Fetish Death Cult because is pretty much sums it up. The compulsive preoccupation with the phallic fetish objects and the glee every time someone gets killed by a gun* as it increases gun sales.

*I was gonna say "someone with a gun" but as Goldy's post points out....

@36 see #41.

@49 Yes, first there's the guilt of killing the boy. But, without a trial won't she also face the guilt of not being exonerated by a jury of her peers? And then there's the guilt of profiting off selling the gun to confirmed kill aficionados. The guilt of profiting off paintings auctioned to arms dealers. She really is the victim in all this.

@47:

So, you & your fellow NRAbids can't even walk into a local bar without feeling the need to "protect" yourself by packing?

Hm, I could have sworn just yesterday, one of your bretheren was fairly bursting at the seams with bravado, declaring how gun owners were so "unafraid".

But hey, thanks for putting the lie to yet another B.S. GFDC myth...

This is all so awful. However, if you know a gun is faulty (and loaded) and you put the faulty, loaded gun to your son's head? The death certainly wasn't intentional but this woman is definitely largely to blame for her son's death.
Rules of gun ownership: Never point a gun, even an unloaded gun, at someone unless you intend to shoot them.
Never load a gun unless you intend to shoot it.
If you're not intending to use the gun then the safety should be engaged, the magazine removed and the chamber evacuated. All while the gun is either pointed at the ground or at a wall.
Was the gun faulty? Absolutely. Was this tragic for the family? Absolutely. Did the gun make the family safer? Absolutely not. Were these gun owners responsible with their gun? Absolutely not.

Look, it is completely clear that guns are dangerous. That's known. And there's a point here that faulty ones in particular can be extremely dangerous. But if you are holding in your hand a gun that is KNOWN TO YOU TO DISCHARGE RANDOMLY, the FIRST thing you should do is take out the magazine and clear the chamber. There is inherent danger in firearms, more than any other kind of civilian-accessible weapon, which can be mitigated with responsible handling. This woman, unfortunately, handled her weapon in as irresponsible a way as she possibly could have.

Baloney. She shot him intentionally.

@36 Yes, safety training TOTALLY reduces accidents.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/13/us/gun-saf…

If you read the article, she or her husband says something to the effect of "leave us alone with our grief."

No honey, I think there's going to be an investigation and it's not going to back your story.

Go look up the 911 transcripts. Her first story on the phone was that her *stepson* (not her son...not that some stepparents aren't amazing, but some are definitely far from it) was playing with the gun when it went off. Obviously, that hasty explanation didn't work out with the wounds or something (she mentions fingerprints and DNA at one point, so it could also be that he never touched the gun and that dawned on her after a few seconds), so now this one. When real things happen, you tend to forget small details in recounting them. When you make shit up, you tend to get very, very detailed. Laid his head on her chest, she lifted her hand to the back of his head.

Also, he had a gunshot to the right side of his head. How does a hand at the back of the head shoot someone in the right side of the head (also, if she's right handed, this story is so much bunk because wrists don't work like that!)? Also also, if the gun was pointed upwards (the natural position if you reach to the back of someone's head with it while they're hugging you), how did she avoid shooting herself in the face in the process? ALSO, she said they had been drinking (handling a weapon if you've consumed alcohol is a humongous no-no). There needs to be a lot of explaining here to make this make ANY sense as anything other than homicide.

First rule of gun safety, don't point a fucking gun at anything you're not willing to destroy, ever. Because shit happens, bad triggers, bad ammo, whatever. So when a gun accidentally goes off, it's not pointed at someone. I'm a gun owner and I fully acknowledge having a gun around creates additional risk that wouldn't be there otherwise. That's why you do everything you can to mitigate the risk and be aware of it. Why the fuck are you handling a loaded gun around other people anyway? There's only 3 places a loaded gun should be: a safe, a holster or pointed down range at the gun range. There is never any reason to be holding a loaded gun otherwise. If I'm cleaning it or showing it to someone the first thing I do is unload it. Even when it's unloaded, second rule of guns, I treat it like it is loaded. I never point an unloaded gun at anyone. As a gun owner I agree with Goldy, guns are NOT safe. What keeps me safer by owning a gun is always keeping in mind guns are dangerous and treating it like a dangerous object so I don't get complacent. My lab grade thermometer filled with mercury is not safe either, so I use extra caution that I don't drop it and spill a dangerous substance everywhere. My mercury thermometer is normally in a case and my gun is normally in a case and when either of them are out of their case I am extra cautious knowing being careless with either one could have bad consequences. That mother should be charged with reckless endangerment. Hopefully though people aren't stupid enough to hug someone holding a gun. Or hug someone holding a beaker of nitroglycerine. Or hug someone holding an uncapped syringe filled with poison.

@46

The Tinkham shooting ban does not apply to hunting, only recreational shooting. http://snovalleystar.com/2011/05/18/targ…

Also you realize how much hunting land there is in the state right?

Also if anything was "skurring the durrr" it was I-90

@41
I support mandatory gun safety training for everyone, not just gun owners.

@50
Nice racist epithet you bigoted piece of shit.

Also your source looks TOTALLY legit. *snicker*

Gun hugs are dangerous? Fucking a Obama get your shit together.

@62... Little piggy got his feefee's hurt...awwww.

Asshole can sure dish it out though. As to sources? I'll take the historical record over your opinion...maaaaaan.