How many children have to be “accidentally” shot and killed before people start to lock up their fucking guns? How many children have to die before we accept that our babies and their safety is more important than being able to own a gun? This week’s Throat Punch goes to gun owners who do not lock up their guns and give their children guns before they are even in Kindergarten.
In Southern Kentucky, the cutest little 2-year-old girl, Caroline Sparks, with big blue eyes and blonde hair was accidentally shot dead this week by her 5-year-old brother, Kristian Sparks. The little boy received the .22 caliber Crickett rifle, with which he fatally shot his sister, as a birthday gift.
The little Crickett is a single-shot rifle that has a child safety. How ironic is that? The Crickett website features .22 –caliber rifle models for little kids with stock colors ranging from pink to red and white and blue swirls, for the ultimate girly girl. “My first rifle” is the company’s slogan. Sweet, does that come with a camo jacket that says “Kills People Dead!”
In that part of the country, it is not unheard of for young children to learn how to handle a gun for hunting and many of them have guns handed down to them or given to them for special occasions. I know this to be true because I lived in Tennessee where they share that mentality. I used to teach 5-year-olds who would regularly look forward to going hunting with their daddies.
The children’s mother said she was cleaning and stepped out for a second when she heard the shot. The little boy was playing with his rifle when it accidentally discharged and killed his baby sister. The family insists that they kept the rifle in a place considered to be a safe spot.
Okay, I don’t even know where to start. First off, I don’t even believe in giving kids play guns, let alone real fucking guns with actual bullets. Secondly, obviously this “considered to be safe” spot was not very hard to access or safe. This rifle should have been locked up and not loaded. Unless this little boy was being trained to be a sniper, or they expected a 5-year-old to protect the family from intruders trying to enter their trailer, why the fuck would it be loaded?
The gun should have never been in the house with children that small in the first place, especially if it was not locked up. A 5-year-old sees this as a toy. He has no way of having the reverence and concern for safety that an adult should.
I know this was an accident and this family tragically lost their little girl but why would anyone leave children unattended, even for a second, in a home where the gun is not unloaded and locked up. It’s like playing a game of Russian roulette with your children’s lives. Guess what? The bullet was in the chamber and now a little girl is dead and a little boy has to grow up and live with that.
Even more shocking to me is the accompanying video in which the Grandmother, Linda Riddle, looked like a deranged lunatic who kept smiling, which I am assuming is a nervous tick. Riddle said she is devastated, but comforted knowing that her granddaughter is in a better place.
“It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess,” she told WLEX. “I just know she’s in heaven right now and I know she’s in good hands with the Lord.”
WHAT??? It was not God’s will that the little girl ended up with a bullet in her. It was bad parenting and poor choices in birthday gifts. Hey, people stop giving your kids guns as gifts and for the love of God, Lock up YOUR FUCKING GUNS!!!!
I am sick to death of children dying senselessly because they had access to a gun. Please don’t give me the ”guns don’t kill people, people do” response because if this country weren’t flooded with guns ( licensed and not) we wouldn’t be mourning all of these senseless deaths. Bottom line is that people are just not responsible enough to own guns and procreate so we need to eliminate one or the other. We have to keep having children so the species survives, so that leaves one answer; GET.RID.OF.THE.GUNS!!!!
4 comments
I don’t for one minute believe our 2nd amendment rights will ever be completely taken away and it bothers the hell out of me when people claim that’s what’s going to happen if we continue to pass gun safety/gun control laws. It’s fucking Constitutional RIGHT to own a gun! So gun fanatics need to calm the eff down about “their rights being taken away”. If you are a responsible person who wants to own guns, for whatever reason, you should have no problem with proving it. Just do it. Just jump through whatever hoops you need to jump through. If it’s really worth it to you, you will. And maybe, hopefully, we can prevent any more children from being killed with guns.
Say it, sista.
Well said.
I was sick when I saw this earlier this week as well and pretty much said verbatim what you just did to my friends. My other thought was “damn. if that was the safe place where was the “unsafe” place that they kept their weapons? I’m also sick of hearing people add the “it was God’s will” and “they’re in a better place” crap as if saying that makes it okay. Really?? She wasn’t sick. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with apparently, the wrong family.