Another "Accidental" Shooting - 14 Year Old Girl

[otohara]

Colorado Springs Teen Shot, Killed by Stepfather.

Police say a 14-year-old Colorado girl was fatally shot by her stepfather after a report of a burglary at her home.

Colorado Springs police spokesman Larry Herbert said the girl's stepfather fired the shot, but said it was unclear if he had mistaken the teen for a burglar.

Police say the girl was shot around 6 a.m. Monday and later died at the hospital.

The stepfather hasn't been arrested and it will be up to prosecutors to decide whether charges should be filed. Colorado's "Make My Day" law allows residents to defend themselves against intruders. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/colorado-springs-teen-shot-killed-stepfather-21314426

[MineralMan]

1. Aw, geez...

I hope it didn't happen because she was sneaking back into the house after spending the night elsewhere. I know 14-year-olds who have done that in secret.

Sadly, too many times a firearm in a home for protection gets used without accurately identifying the target. An incredibly sad lapse of attention to the basic rules of firearms safety. And a child is now dead.

[otohara]

2. When My Kid Was Little

he would spend the night at a friends house and then around 2AM he'd call and want to come home. I was always in fear that the owners might think he was a burglar and shoot him. I'd tell him to go back to the bedroom and wait until he heard my car.
Sad you can't feel your kid is safe in someones home.

Now days I'd ask if there were guns in the home and if so, he wouldn't be allowed to go there.

[Jenoch]

4. How many times did your child do this?

It seems to me that he was too young for sleepovers.

The question to be asked is how the guns are stored. I have guns in my home and the parents of my childrens' friends were aware of the guns. They also knew the guns were locked inside a safe.

[Hoyt]

6. Why too young? He wasn't too young to recognize the gun fanciers are a threat to him and society.

Maybe the gun fancier's kids talked of their dad's obsession, training to shoot people, etc. Heck, maybe he had shot someone along the line. Would you feel safe letting your kids sleep over with the likes of George Zimmerman in the house?

[otohara]

7. He Couldn't Sleep

No, he did this for years.
He sleeps with his eyes open - weird syndrome ... creeps his friends out.

So if the family thought a burglar was in the home - wouldn't they go to the gun safe and get it?

Then there was the time when he was at a neighbors house - new family with two boys. I called and no one answered, so I went
down there and while knocking on the door I could hear them scurrying about. I looked in the window and there on the table were
3 guns.

FUCK I almost had a heart attack - last time he was at that home.

[Jenoch]

9. I think you made the correct decision.

[Beaverhausen]

5. OH MY GOD YOUR GIF

that is the best EVER!!!

[Iggo]

13. No. It happened because her stepdad is too stupid to own a gun.

[Logical]

3. This is another idiot gun owner. Most are not. This man deserves prison. n-t

[haele]

8. Snuck out and tried to sneak back in?

After we got full custody when she was 13, the kidlet often tried to sneak out of the house and hang out with "her friends" (because they "understood" her and fed into her feeling of righteous indignation about not getting her own way, apparently) whenever she had a nasty fight with her father.
Her "friends" - children from other broken homes with very casual parents - apparently "did it all the time". They also drank, smoked, "whatever" because their parents "didn't care anyway" (well, her mother certainly didn't), and hey, at 13/14, they were really close to 18 and being all grown up, right?
We knew she was heading that direction, and we kept an eye out for the signs she wanted to run. They usually began with nasty temper tantrums springing up for no reason.

If this girl convinced herself it was okay to go ahead and sneak out to hang out (or party) with her friends, and she had a clueless, over-reactive, trigger-happy parent (natural or step-, male or female), it was only a recipe for disaster.

It's still ultimately the stepfather's own fault he shot her. First rule of firearms safety - never draw and shoot if you don't know what your target is.
He was a careless gun slinger, and deserves full punishment of the law for what he did.

Haele

[otohara]

11. Did You Make This Up?

Cuz you kinda describe me when I was that age, messed up. All my friends were from single parent homes, guess we migrated towards each other because of the dysfunction of single parent life. Only back then there weren't guns in every other house in the neighborhood and we never imagined getting shot when we arrived home.

Can't imagine a 14 year old girl thinking her so-called step-father would do her in when she returned home. You must think 14 year old girls are the new 28 and wise beyond their years.

Never heard the word kidlet before - YUCK

[haele]

12. Nope - lived through it. For three or so years until she found out most of her "friends" weren't.

And yes, Kidlet can be a yucky term to some; it's a 90's regional term - usually a generic endearment for a child you are fond of who doesn't want to be your kid (one who thinks the 'rents are so lame and dumb...).

It is less torturous than Kiddo, which was often how I was referred to growing up.

I could just as easily call her "Bug"...

And yeah, there was no way in hell her father and I would ever think of allowing a gun in the house when we finally got custody of her and we saw how much her mother and mother's boyfriends had messed her up. Even now, she's still unstable enough we wouldn't have one around.

Y'know, we continue to live in "the 'hood" - a sea of different colors and cultures where a lots of people don't understand why a white bread working-class family like ours don't a gun to protect ourselves and our 52" TV. If my husband or I had been the "cautious/big in being self-sufficient" types who would rather have an arsenal to protect themselves than get to know and trust their neighbors or call 911 if there's a problem, that might have been the kidlet when she was 14 and did start the sneaking out/running away stage of dealing with her pain and confusion.

Haele

[ManiacJoe]

10. Nothing accidental here. Plenty of negligence though.

The girl was intentionally shot, just not properly identified before being shot.

Violation of Safety Rule #4: Know your target, what is behind it, and what is beyond it.