Someone wasn't thinking about the children...

[ileus]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46580398/ns/us_news-christian_science_monitor/#.T098A2EW6eE

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Lane stole the gun, a Ruger .22-caliber Mark III target pistol, from an uncle who legally purchased the weapon in August 2010 from a gun shop in Mentor, Ohio. Lane’s grandparents noticed the gun missing this week from a barn they owned.

Uncle or Grandparents? Guns in Barns?


More problematic is that Lane attended an alternative school for students who are evaluated as a high risk for “substance abuse/chemical dependency, anger issues, mental health issues, truancy, delinquency, difficulties with attention/organization, and academic deficiencies,” according to the school's website. All are red flags that should have made the family weapon more difficult to obtain,


“If you have a child perceived at risk, then we need to take special precautions. We encourage parents of teenagers to remove things from their house like guns or medication

Family weapon....there's a new one.


Ohio has no laws governing child access to guns on its books and as recently as this month state lawmakers debated a bill that would allow concealed guns in schools.

By anyone don't you know.

[midnight]

1. Women packing heat is all the rage here in Wisconsin. It can now be an Aunt's gun these children

have access to... Lot's of gun people think its smart that these women pack heat.... Especially our county clerk Kathy Nicolas... She is known to make mistakes.

[Remmah2]

3. Sounds like a bash on women?

The women in my life are pro-choise and empowered.

[ileus]

5. You're right women should stick to key chains, and hair brushes.

[DonP]

11. In Illinois rat tail combs and keys are the defense weapon of choice

That's what the Illinois State Police web site says. Women that feel threatened should put their keys between their fingers or use a rat tail comb as a defensive weapon.

I'm not sure what women that use a hairbrush and use a key card are supposed to do.

[shadowrider]

18. Edited cause I need new bifocals

[PavePusher]

12. Don't forget the vomiting and peeing.

[Remmah2]

2. Family gun, concealed dog, what the hell.

From other news bits and bytes I understand his parents were pretty bad as well. Keeping a firearm in the barn? Pretty lame, the adultship where he lived sounds just as lame. Now firearm owners everywhere will be discriminated against for the piss poor actions of <.01%.

Let the profiling begin.

[one-eyed fat man]

4. What's wrong with barns?

Keep a half million dollar combine in a barn, why not a 175 dollar .22 pistol? It's a lot more environmentally friendly pest control than 1080.

[ileus]

7. good point it was a 22 target pistol, probably to dispose of rats and such.

I know more than once I put the barn cat down in the grain barrel to catch the "trapped" mouse.

[Remmah2]

9. Subject to rust.

Firearms should be subject to supervision. On the hip, close at hand, or when not supervised in a locked cabinet. Bad idea to leave the liquor cabinet unlocked too. Unfortunatly medicines should be secured as well. Take the keys out of the ignition. Breaching a lock indicates that the thief had intent to do harm. Not an accidental walk off.

There was a time when you didn't need to lock your door, lock your car or lock the gun cabinet. Child proof caps on medicine bottles were adequate. Times have changed and we live in a society that sues everybody and declines to take personal responsibility. Some adults are worse than some 12 year olds.

I would be interested to know how the .22 was exactly stored in the barn. Personally, being subject to rust, I wouldn't store my firearms in the barn. Not even in a locked cabinet. If the 17 Y.O. male took the firearm off the top of an open work bench/shelf then two wrongs were comitted. If he stole it from a simple locked cabinet or assaulted his grandfather and took it off his person, different circumstances.

I grew up working on a farm. Grew up working around all the herbicides, pesticides, vet medicines and fertilizers. Times have changed, mostly people have changed.

[one-eyed fat man]

14. Grew up on a farm as well

By age 12 I had my own .22 rifle and would often hunt after school when my chores were done. Maybe my parents and the other adults had higher standards and higher expectations. Maybe my generation was inculcated with a greater sense of responsibility. Maybe there was clearer understanding of "right and wrong."

One things's for sure, the culture has changed. Those who support situational ethics and the things are only wrong if you get caught are reaping what they sowed.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. ~J.C. Watts

[Hoyt]

10. Oh the poor, pitiful plight of the gun culture.

[ileus]

13. as I always say...another gun victimized by a human.

[DWC]

6. Get off the"The Children" Crap !!

This guy is 17 years old. My uncle was 17 years old and an infantryman on D-Day at Normandy.

"The Children" card might be played up to maybe age 12. After that it is simply B.S.

Semper Fi,

[ileus]

8. Now now...just a misguided child temped by a ruger death spewer.

[Hangingon]

16. Well said DWC! Thanks

[DonP]

15. Does anyone else think it's odd?

That he was able to kill three people with a .22?

That's not exactly a "spray and pray" stopping caliber.

From what I've read so far, people were ducking and dodging when he started shooting too. It just struck me as strange that a .22 target pistol could be that deadly?

[Hangingon]

17. Not surprising

A .22 at close range is very effective. Not what I want for a self-defense weapon, but supposedly is an oft-used assassination weapon.

[DonP]

19. I know, it's one of the "Outfits" favored tools

But that's usually up close and personal, like the guy we had here in Chicago, where they shot him in the head at point blank range and the .22 didn't penetrate, it ran under his scalp and exited the other side of his head.

They left him for dead with all the blood. But he lived to testify against some serious mob figures then into witness protection.

They found the two failed hit men in an Indiana Cornfield a few months later.

I was trying to imagine the chaos in this case and being able to hit at least 3 targets so quickly and accurately with such a small caliber.

[Hangingon]

22. As I understand this incident, the shooting was a close quarters.

Small calibers like .22 and .25 are favorites of gangbangers. The bullets bounce around inside the victim and do a great deal of damage. Bullets tend are usually split into small particles so ballistics is not useful.

[one-eyed fat man]

20. From all accounts,

He walked up to them while they were seated at a school cafeteria table. No one has said if they were facing him or not when he opened fire. With his victims targets at arm's length, it is highly possible. A .22 is low recoil and relatively low noise.

Recall that lots of students who were talking to the news cameras were saying they heard the noise but failed to recognize it as gunshots.

[ellisonz]

21. We don't think about children enough in this country.

A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds

*More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.2

Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4. 1

It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates. 3

More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way. 4

Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education.

About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse. 5

About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder. 5

The estimated annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States for 2008 is $124 billion. 6

More: http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics#gen-stats