Two-Year-Old Dies After ‘Responsible Gun Owner’ Leaves Loaded Shotgun On Table At Daycare (VIDEO)

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/28/two-year-old-dies-loaded-shotgun-babysitter-daycare-video/

Two-year-old Abigail Newman died Monday, October 26, after encountering a loaded 20-gauge shotgun. Henderson County, North Carolina police say that the toddler was shot in the neck at the home of her babysitter. She was still breathing when paramedics arrived on the scene. She was transported to Mission Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about an hour after the shooting occurred.

According to police, James Fuller Stepp went hunting the night before the toddler was killed. He left the loaded shotgun on the kitchen table overnight. It was still there when he left for work the next morning.

Stepp’s wife called 911 at around 9:00 am on Monday morning, to report that a little girl had been shot. She told the emergency dispatch operator, “One of the guns was loaded on the table and I didn’t know it. A little girl was shot.” Police have not said whether there were other guns on the table, or in other parts of the home that were easy for children to access. The statement “one of the guns was loaded on the table” definitely indicates more than one gun in the house.

There were at least three other children in the home, ages seven, three and four months, when the two-year-old was shot. It’s unknown whether James Fuller Stepp or his wife, who was supposed to be watching Abigail Newman on Monday, are the parents of any of the children who were in the home.

James Fuller Stepp was arrested on Monday night and is charged with involuntary manslaughter.

According to the local officials and the press, Stepp is really just a “good guy with a gun.” It’s not his fault. This little girl’s death was just a very “tragic accident.”

“In no way are we trying to indicate … that (Stepp) was pulling the trigger,” Maj. Frank Stout of the Sheriff’s Office told the Citizen-Times.

The District Attorney, who is responsible for making sure that Stepp is convicted of the crime he is charged with, said “These folks didn’t intend for this to happen.”

The Pastor at Holly Springs Baptist Church went on record as well, saying “I believe that these are people that are very much family-oriented and well-loved and well-respected in the community.”

The narrative is that this was just a horrible accident, and no-one is really to blame.

We should really feel sorry for the Stepps. “Based upon the tragedy of this event, there are people we have not been able to speak to yet. … People are not in the condition to even speak because of their grief,” Maj. Stout told the Citizen-Times.

BULLSHIT.

So far this year 582 children under the age of 11 have died from gun-related injuries. Another 2,151 children ages 12 – 17 have also been killed by guns. Those numbers don’t include the thousands of children who survive gunshot injuries every year in the U.S. In total, almost 10,000 children under the age of 18 are injured or killed annually because of guns.

Every time a child is killed by a gun we’re told that it’s just another “tragic accident.” We shouldn’t blame anyone.

Yes, we should. We should blame the “responsible gun-owners” who are anything but responsible. We should blame the NRA and their spokespersons who encourage irresponsible gun-ownership. These are people who fight against every piece of sane gun legislation proposed, from requiring gun owners to lock up their weapons, to ensuring that guns have child safety features that could prevent these kinds of tragedies. They fight against mandatory gun safety classes, pushing to get more and more guns into the hands of people who understand the dangers less and less.

We should blame the Republican Congress and right wing politicians who take millions of dollars from the gun lobby in exchange for the sacrifice of our children to the violent, blood-thirsty, war-loving God of the Christian right.

We should blame American gun culture and the media that tells us that there’s nothing we can do to change these horrible statistics or prevent these “tragic accidents.”

President Obama’s 23-point plan for reducing the number of gun injuries and deaths in the United States is full of sensible steps that we could and should be taking to protect the public from irresponsible, uneducated, incapable, criminal and mentally ill gun owners. Why is the NRA so opposed to keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous and dysfunctional people?

Is it because they really believe that the President is going to “take everyone’s guns away?” Hell no.

Is it because they care about the rights of the American public? Do you think they cared one bit about Abigail Newman’s right to live and grow up? Did they care about the rights of the Umpqua College students? No more than they cared about the rights of the children of Sandy Hook.

It’s because they make a lot of money by selling guns to the mentally ill and convicted criminals, not to mention selling them to people who aren’t capable of passing a firearms safety course. They don’t care if the people that buy their product are educated in how to use and store it safely. They don’t care if the people who buy their product intend to use it to harm as many people as they can. They don’t care at all about reducing the number of innocent children who are killed by irresponsible and negligent gun owners. All they care about is selling as many guns as they can, to anyone with the money to buy them.

What else can we expect from an industry that makes all of money by manufacturing a product that is designed to do nothing but kill?

not sure if i just missed it but more concern for the over 21's in this tragedy than for the 2 year old victim   calls to question do all lives matter or only when they hear Black lives do???????????????
reality they will still stick to the rhetoric and doctrine that guns do no evil and our children continue to die along with their parents, uncles and aunts their siblings and mates who's zoomin who???????