An 8-year-old boy has died after accidentally shooting himself with a loaded gun left in a car while his mother was inside an Utah convenience store, police said.
The boy was alone in the car about 7:40 p.m. Monday in Lehi — a city about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City — when he shot himself in the head, Jeanteil Livingston with the Lehi City Police Department confirmed to CBS News. The incident occurred in a vehicle located in the parking lot of a Maverick gas station, police said.
The boy was taken to a local hospital in extremely critical condition. He was later airlifted to a hospital up north and died Tuesday morning, police said.
Utah does not have any laws to penalize someone for failing to secure an unattended firearm and leaving it accessible to an unsupervised minor, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The state also does not require unattended firearms to be stored in a certain way or require a locking device to be sold with a firearm.
thanks to the “gun laws only hurt law abiding citizens!” crowd
The problem is not enough good 8 year olds with guns.
Wombs aren’t sending their best
Utah wombs are trying to beat the odds though. So they’ve got that going for them. /s
People are saying the seven year old has mental health issues.
Imagine being held responsible for what your firearms do if you don’t secure them. We can’t have that, I need my weapon to be always ready in case my kid wants to shoot themselves and die!
I can’t imagine leaving a loaded weapon unsecured because: I’m not an idiot.
I have them secured where they belong in a locked gun safe with the ammo in a different location secured in its own safe. It’s not hard.
Now, this mom gets to enjoy the horror of seeing her sons brains blown out in the back of her car played over and over and over in her mind. Stupid fuck.
I am going to guess that the loaded gun was in the car for “protection”. You know, against the rampant carjacking epidemic currently crippling Lehi, Utah. /s
Ah, well at least the car wasn’t stolen. Gotta find those silver linings in every tragedy. (/s for the context-illiterate.)
Well she was probably republican so they see THE OTHER™ in every shadow.
yep, good thing the gun was there to keep her safe, i bet her son really appreciates that.
God these news articles, and the insanity in the USA, makes me angry.
In a woodworking group im part of, people show off their home made, wood gun racks, which are scary enough, but once in a while someone posts a picture of a full gun room, with hundereds of long arms on the walls. Often people say “i bet this guy is scared of nothin”
This guy is fucking terrified. I always compare it to a fire extinguisher: You go to a friends house, and they have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, they are sane.
You go to a friends house, they have 6 fire extinguishers in every room, including the bathroom: they are terrified.
I have them secured where they belong
in a locked gun safein a museum to teach people the wrongs of our past.Unless idiots are allowed to keep fully loaded weapons within easy reach of children the government will start throwing us into internment camps.
/s
I can’t imagine needing a loaded weapon because I’m not a fucking coward that’s scared of my own shadow
Well you’re in the UK so cowardice is pretty standard over there, regardless.
I’m not in the UK, thanks
But I’m still not cowardly enough to own a handgun because I’m not a quivering fucking shitebag
“Oh shit, Marvin shot himself.”
.
If he didn’t have access to that gun, he wouldn’t have died free
Well if he shot himself then he was clearly both
Why the fuck does a mother leave her son with loaded gun in the car?
I bet I can name a few different bumper stickers that car likely has
Mental illness and or lack of mental awareness
This is not a mental illness. That’s the Fox News scapegoat, not an actual reason. This is just complete ignorance of gun danger in a country that celebrates giving out firearms like candy without any kind of training or licensing requirements. This is a dangerous lack of gun laws and an ignorant gun owner. Here in Canada, we have lots of guns but a far lower rate of accidents and murders. Pistols are restricted, which means the only places you’re allowed to ever have a pistol is locked in your home, at the gun range, or at the gunsmith, or locked in truck on a direct route between those locations. You aren’t allowed to keep ammo in the same container as the gun, never mind keeping one actually loaded. You know all of this because you had to take a safety course and pass a written and practical exam before you are allowed to own even a .22. The restricted license is yet another course and set of exams.
This is the fault of the laws of the land and the mother’s ignorance. Don’t bring mental illness into it, that’s ablist bullshit.
if you own a
gunhuman killing device, you are statistically more likely to die from it.its just that simple. your
gunshuman killing devices do not make you more safe.Clearly there’s no realistic way to prevent things like this from continuing to happen. Fuck I love America.
EDIT: Because the 2A brigade has shown up and god forbid anyone advocates for more safety features, let me clarify that the Glock uses a single action trigger which I erroneously called a hair trigger out of a desire to simplify. Goocks also have some safety mechanisms to prevent it from accidental discharge when drop or when casually handling it. They do not, in my opinion, go far enough. Anyone reading this does not have to take my or anyone else in this thread at their word. Do your research. I did not do my due diligence on Glocks and ended up with two pistols I dislike with a passion. Lesson learned. Also, I am not saying that mechanical safeties should replace proper gun safety and trigger discipline.
I own a number of pistols including Glock and Para-Ordnance. Para-Ordnance is now defunct but I believe their pistols included safety features that should be a requirement for all pistols sold to the general public.
First, let’s talk about Glock. A Glock 17 is a 9mm pistol. It is extremely light and relatively cheap. It also has zero safety features. This pistol has a hair trigger and no safety. The moment you chamber a round, this weapon is hot and itching for an excuse to fire. I bought a pair and I hate them with a passion. They remain unloaded at all times except when I am at the range and literally getting ready to shoot. I might have them destroyed; I hate them that much.
My Para-ordnance pistols (Tac-Four LDA is my favorite) on the other hand have a number of safety features that help prevent an accidental discharge.
- LDA (light double action): This is a type of trigger system. When the trigger is not cocked, you can pull the trigger and it will do nothing. It also means that no round is likely in the chamber. When you chamber a round, the trigger will cock but it still is not ready to fire. This is the difference between “double action”, “light double action”, and a pistol like the Glock. Double action is what you find in revolvers where, if not cocked, the trigger pulls back the hammer before it releases. This can be a very long and heavy pull which is why you see users cock their gun in westerns. The problem with that is that a cocked revolver back to being on a hair trigger before firing, just like a Glock. The LDA system “half cocks” the hammer so that the heavy pull is done with, but you still have travel time where the hammer is pulled back further before release. It is very unlikely that a user will twitch pull the trigger by mistake.
- Thumb safety: This is a fairly common feature on pistols (absent in the Glock) where you can flick the safety on and off with your thumb. An engage safety will not allow the pistol to fire.
- Grip safety: A less common feature (absent in the Glock) where a safety is engaged by default until your hand fully around the grip.
The Para-Ordnance pistols featured all three safety mechanisms I listed above. The Glock have zero safety mechanisms. None. Zilch. Nada. Para-Ordnance went out of business and Glock are one of the most, if not the most, popular pistols sold in the US. Nobody wants to pay for the extra safety features. I think they should be mandatory.
If Kia can face a federal inquiry for not installing a “theft prevention device” than it’s amazing that gun manufactures aren’t raked over the coals for lack of safety devices and controls.
I mean I’m not surprised, gun rights matter more than kids right to life I suppose.
Unless the kid is still in the womb.
Not sure how much I buy this as anyone who can describe a stock Glock trigger as a “hair trigger” doesn’t understand what that term actually means nor do they have a basic understanding of gun safety.
Before ANY sort of mechanical safety is even considered - why the FUCK did this child have access to any firearm. A safety on a firearm was never designed to stop a user who is willfully trying to use the weapon nor is it a child safety device. To imply that’s how it should be used is irresponsible and I highly recommend editing your post to reflect this.
Do you also think we should ban garbage disposals because there isn’t a safety to stop my child from sticking their hand in it? What about a safety lock for the disposal switch? Will that save the child’s arm?
Having mechanical safeties are meant as an add-on to gun safety, not a replacement.
Not sure how much I buy this as anyone who can describe a stock Glock trigger as a “hair trigger” doesn’t understand what that term actually means nor do they have a basic understanding of gun safety.
Yeah, I stopped reading as soon as they said hair trigger with a Glock. Even after you rack the slide you still have a full trigger pull and it certainly isn’t hair while still having a trigger safety lever.
I stopped reading when they said Glocks are dangerous because of their rigorously tested and proven safety features that guarantee the weapon will not fire unless the trigger is pulled.
What a load of liberal crockery man, y’all need to visit the rough parts of town more.
Guns should fire if the trigger is pulled and a bullet is in the chamber. Full stop.
Don’t want to shoot? Don’t pull the trigger. Follow the three rules plus have a good holster, Christ I can’t even imagine having three layers of safeties to go through before my own gun will let me shoot. Sounds like they went out of business for a reason.
I know there’s no left in the US remaining to push for gun rights but that was just an incredible post.
Did we even read the same article…? It doesn’t seem to ever mention a glock, I don’t know what business you’re saying deserved to go out of business, and the whole article is about firearm storage, not the design of integrated firearm safties…
How is “safety against drops or accidental trigger pulls” better than “safety against drops or accidental trigger pulls” + “manual safety” + “full grip safety”.
Never said it was. I was just addressing these dumb sentences: “It also has zero safety features. This pistol has a hair trigger and no safety.”
it does not have “zero safety features” and if you educated yourself you would know this. also why do you own one if you don’t like it? that is a weird ass comment. either you bought a gun without informing yourself about it or you did inform yourself and bought it anyway. also you seem not to know what a hair trigger is. the fact that millions of private citizens, law enforcement and military seem not to have a problem with glocks points no the problem not being the guns.
Send me your “dangerous” Glock pistols instead of destroying them.
These pieces of shit don’t deserve to exist. They’re an accident waiting to happen all in the name of making a cheap gun. Get yourself a Sig if you want an inexpensive pistol with at least a manual safety.
I know you mean well, but really you have an unorthodox opinion that the vast majority of users, civilian, professional, even at the organizational level, disagree with.
If you’re relying on a mechanical safety on the firearm itself to prevent tragedy, you’re already screwed. Kids can bypass that stuff with enough fiddling. They just make the firearm more complicated to use, which can paradoxically create more mistakes in some instances, especially under pressure. Nothing replaces responsible handling.
I predominantly shoot Beretta 92 pistols. Traditional double action, comes with a manual safety/decocker from the factory. On the one I shoot the most, I purchased a kit from Beretta that disables the safety to make it only a decocker. It doesn’t make the pistol less safe, it is a dangerous weapon either way. It just simplifies it.
I understand your point but I have never had a problem with the safety devices on my pistols. At this point the thumb safety disengage and engage is muscle memory every time I grip or holster my weapon.
Also, I do not mean that mechanical safety devices should replace gun safety procedures or proper discipline. An accessible weapon should never be left unattended with a child. If you own guns and have kids, you should train your kids in gun safety and trigger discipline ad-nauseum.
People do stupid shit no matter what. My uncle almost shot himself in the head with a .38 service revolver while cleaning it. How do you even do that?
Nobody should rely on mechanical safeties, but guns without them are a dangerous consumer product, like selling cars without seatbelts because some folks are cheapskates or think they’re uncool.
Any other industry would have been fixed this ages ago after lawsuits.
Mechanical safeties where introduced to prevent accidental discharge when dropped. Glocks, and other modern handguns have other features to prevent this without manual intervention.
Way to go mom, wtf
