A five day old boy was shot in the head “accidentally” by nearby hunters as he was being held by his father on their couch. Initial reports were that the child’s head was “grazed,” but a new report states the injury was more severe than initially stated and the bullet penetrated the child’s head:
The 5-day-old boy who was accidentally shot by hunters near Saltsburg Thursday night is more seriously injured than authorities first thought, according to Indiana County District Attorney Pat Dougherty.
“It was originally reported that the bullet had grazed the child’s head, but it had actually penetrated the child’s head,” Dougherty said.
***The injuries to the baby were an improbable accident, Dougherty said.
“Nobody would be able to make that shot if they tried,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Who the fuck is trying to shoot a baby in the fucking head? And as someone in law enforcement, you’d think by now with the rash of accidental shootings that it is quite believable.
Trying to think positively, if the kid survives, the rest of his life just has to be easier. I mean, if you get shot in the head when you are five days old, karmically he’s pretty much owed some easy sailing from here on out.
Violet
Wait, let me guess. No charges will be filed because The Hunters Have Suffered Enough Already.
Wag
If only there was a national group for gun owners dedicated to the promotion of gun safety and responsible gun ownership.
I could support a group with those as its only goal.
Betty Cracker
Jesus Christ. I hope the irresponsible assholes are held to account.
Professor
Blame the English, they gave that right to all their colonies’ but it appears that the Americans did not bother to learn the protocols that went with the handling of guns. So sad.
Amir Khalid
I’m surprised that in Indiana it’s apparently quite legal to go hunting with firearms so close to a residence.
Boudica
And one more reason why I don’t believe in god.
gnomedad
There. Are. No. Accidental. Shootings.
jl
Cole needs to get over it and welcome our new overlords of safe and sane behavior wrt to Freedom Guns and Ammo.
Also, might help if Cole, like, learned them and how they work.
Say for example, you shoot your gun in a crowded room, or absent mindedly shoot in the wrong direction at the shooting range while complaining about liberals to your buddy. The bullets ricochet of four or five things and hit a few people. Now, a guy could not make that shot if he tried. Maybe some harm (worth it in the name of freedom) but no foul.
BGinCHI
@Amir Khalid: Indiana County, PA.
Not Indiana, though Lord knows it would hardly surprise….
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
Okay, I got that wrong. In Pennsylvania, then. But still … hunting with firearms! Within rifle range of somebody’s house! OMG!
scav
In the NRA religion, does this count as a baptism?
Trollhattan
“Improbably” in that a gun was discharged whilst pointed at a house. Who lives in these “house” things? People, people live in houses. Is it people hunting season in Pennsylvania? If so, then fair game. If not, arrest the motherfucker who attempted to commit murder.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: I grew up in a rural area and would hear guns going off every now and then. I never took much notice because I figured our neighbors had the good sense to, you know, not point in the direction of people’s houses.
Mnemosyne
I would be more willing to call stuff like this a freak accident if it didn’t happen every goddamned week. It’s like an alcoholic complaining that it’s so weird that they keep wrecking their car.
Violet
I guess no one remembers this story. It’s a few years old now.
Yes, the solution is to build a wall around the school to protect the kids from hunters who might shoot in the wrong direction. Also, too, the woman shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt. And the black man shouldn’t have been driving.
mai naem mobile
How about the shooter just get accidentally grazed inside his head with a nice accurate small bullet. I am sure he wouldn’t be nervous about it or.anything. Better yet lets do it Wayne LaPierre.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Parents who leave guns lying around for kindergartners to shoot each other with don’t get prosecuted. Why would anyone prosecute people carelessly pointing rifles at a house from across the street?
khead
Not an accident. Reckless endangerment.
srv
A .308 can go a long way.
In other news, terrorists are in your corporations:
another Holocene human
Indiana has dedicated itself to becoming a living laboratory of Cleek’s Law.
? Martin
If we’re now down to humanly impossible shots, where does that leave our ‘guns don’t kill people…’ defense?
Mike S
Here in PA the safety zone for hunting with firearms* is 150 yards from homes and farm buildings. A person can give permission for hunters to hunt on their property within their safety zones. Of course commonsense should mean they should not point a weapon whose projectiles can travel much farther than 150 towards a dwelling at all.
*It 50 yards for archers, but I don’t know where the new regs allowing hunting with steel crossbows falls:-(
Jerry O'Brien
I seem to remember Eleanor Clift asking this very same question on the McLaughlin Group once.
Amir Khalid
Off-topic, sorry. But what’s at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC?
Gravenstone
Fuck, I initially misread that as 5 years old, which is quite bad enough. And to the moron marveling about the improbability of the shot, did they not teach you the importance of knowing what lies beyond your target? Like maybe … a FUCKING HOUSE?
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, it’s ridiculous. Wisconsin has zones. You can only use high powered rifles up north, where the population is much more sparse. In the southern portions, it’s only shotguns or muzzle loaders specifically because of the potential of a round going long.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: According to Google maps, it’s right next to Off the Hook Tattoos.
Edit: That’s Pennsylvania Ave SE. Not near the WH.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The Willard Hotel is at 1401. There’s a park across the street from that.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Amir Khalid: The Willard InterContinental Hotel is at 1401. 1400 would be in Pershing Park.
@BillinGlendaleCA: Bastard.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Violet: I guess it depends if it NW or SE Pennsylvania Ave.
ETA: New York Pizza seems to be at 1400 Pennsylvania Ave. SE.
Violet
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, I edited. But I like the idea of Sarah Palin talking about Off the Hook Tattoos. Makes more sense.
another Holocene human
@BGinCHI: Damn! Something about the story screamed “Pennsylvania” but I saw Indiana and was all, plumbing new lows for the midwest again, IND? What I said above still holds. RW Christian nuts who’d cut off their own nose to spite their face.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Violet: Yeah, that makes more sense than the Willard.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I hear the Willard has a nice bar.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I saw the clip of the Half Term Governor on Alex Wagner’s show, her guest said 1400 was the Willard.
Amir Khalid
@another Holocene human:
It’s a town called Indiana in the state of Pennsylvania, which threw me off at first.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@BillinGlendaleCA: The Willard’s website says 1401.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Since when did “make sense” and “Sarah Palin” go together?
Violet
@Roger Moore: Never said they did.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
“Her name is Alberta, she lives in Vancouver!”
KRK
Makes me think of Karen Wood, shot in her own residential backyard by a hunter whose (successful) defense was that he didn’t know he was aiming at houses and mistook her white mittens for a whitetail’s rear end.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): It is indeed, the guest might of said 1401.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: She did say that if she got elected VP, she and the AK “First Dude” were getting tats.
maya
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, they do that a lot in Pennsylvania. Great camouflage, no? Bethlehem also gets a lot of free publicity around Xmas time. Don’t even ask about Pittsburgh……
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: WRT population concentrations: In Westchester Cty (NY), also I believe, Nassau and Suffolk Ctys, you can only hunt deer with bow and arrow but not guns of any kind.
Bill D.
One of the problems with hunting in semi-populated country is that houses and roads can be hidden behind forest foliage, perhaps hundreds of meters back from what you think you’re shooting at. This is no excuse by any means, but it suggests appropriate limitations on rifle use in such areas (as in the case of Wisconsin) and mandatory safety training for hunters on this issue.
Southern Beale
Lot of innocent babies being accidentally shot or nearly shot by people not even in the same house. A guy in Minnesota accidentally fired his high-powered rifle in a house and the bullet traveled through the house, across to the house next door, through that house’s walls, through a child’s baskete of stuffed animals, inches from a sleeping baby’s head, and landed in the carpet.
But hey, don’t worry. It’s just a little freedom raining down on your kids, America!
Citizen_X
I can understand their lawyer making excuses for these idiots, but why is the District Fucking Attorney doing so?
Roger Moore
@Citizen_X:
Because he’s in gun country and wants to be reelected. SATSQ.
JCT
@KRK: I remember that one well. That was a particularly horrific case, she and her family were relatively new and most of the sympathy was for the hunter, with a nice dash of victim blaming. She was a young mother if I recall.
R. Porrofatto
All we can do is hope that, when the baby finally learns to talk, it apologizes to the hunters for putting them through this.
JoyfulA
@Amir Khalid: We also have Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a state school that began as a teachers’ college. “Indiana” as a part of Pennsylvania most likely precedes the name of Indiana, the state. I can’t claim the same for California University of Pennsylvania.
Comrade Dread
If you discharge your weapon, you should be responsible for what happens with that bullet. None of the ‘it was an accident’ or ‘we didn’t know’. No, you fired a lethal weapon near a residence. You should make damn sure that there is ZERO chance that a round you’ve fired can hit someone or you shouldn’t shoot.
Slaughter
I’m from back that way. No way do you shoot if a residence is in the background. The hunter screwed up big-time. About 33 years ago, another hunter’s shot went through a mobile home and killed an infant in its crib. Might have been in Armstrong County or Jefferson, can’t recall exactly.
samiam
Cole searching every corner of the innertubez to find something to be cynical about as usual.
Jebediah, RBG
@Comrade Dread:
It boggles my mind that that isn’t true everywhere, every time.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@samiam: Derp.
tavella
Looking up the Harwell Middle School shooting, Dustin Cook paralyzed one of the boys and caused massive internal injuries, including loss of a kidney on the other. His total punishment? Three years probation.
Three years probation. For crippling two children for life. America is fucked.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Backstop. It’s what’s behind whatever you’re shooting. The NRA used to teach about those as well.
Before they became a political arm of the GOP.
More guns plus zero mandated training. Just what does America think is going to happen?
Xenos
One would think that firing an explosive weapon would be an ultrahazardous activity that would impose strict liability on the user or owner of the weapon.
Regardless of the constitutional right to bear arms, requiring insurance under penalty of criminal sanctions would be obvious. “Good” guys with guns should appreciate this more than anyone else.
TriassicSands
We need to invoke a corollary of the Infinite Monkey Theorem here. It seems like we have an “infinite” number of gun-toting, right wing Republican “chimps” already. Given enough time they will shoot every baby in the head. (And every adult too.)
Kathleen
And people call my neighborhood, an urban, “high crime” (translation lots of “blah” people) hell hole.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne: You missed the passive-voiced off-blaming. The actual phrasing is “How does my car keep hitting all these trees?”
(h/t Spousal Unit ThresherK, psychotherapist)
amy c
@Xenos: Right?
If I am driving 80mph in a 55 zone and I kill another driver, I can say all I want that I didn’t know I was exceeding the limit, but in no way am I removed from liability. My speed will be taken into account when the insurance companies and law enforcement look at the accident, and decide on payouts and penalties. It’s my responsibility as the person driving the vehicle to know what the speed limit is, and pay a penalty if I ignore it and cause harm. How is that any different from some fool firing a gun near a house and claiming he didn’t know the house was there?
brantl
These dumbasses are either hunting too close to a residence, or using the wrong guns. Rifles where only shotguns are legal , or way too damn close.