Here’s another heartbreaking story about children shooting children; in this case, a five-year-old shot and killed his two-year-old sister. What makes this case particularly horrible is that the gun belonged to the five-year-old.

Yes, there are people in this world so demented they would give a .22 caliber firearm to a five-year-old.

No, wait, that’s not quite right. The story says the boy got the rifle as a present last year, meaning he may have been four at the time.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White identified the girl as Caroline Starks.

He said the children’s mother was at home when the shooting occurred, and the gun was a gift the boy received last year.

“It’s a Crickett,” he said. “It’s a little rifle for a kid. …The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun.”

White said the gun was kept in a corner, and the family did not realize a shell had been left in it.

He said the shooting will be ruled accidental.

“Just one of those crazy accidents,” White said.

Yeah, just one of those crazy accidents. I mean, what responsible adult would have thought to not allow a five-year-old own a gun?

in other gun news, last week the Republican senators from Oklahoma, Inhofe and Lucas, introduced a bill that

… would ban federal agencies, excluding the Pentagon, from buying more ammunition during a six-month period if it currently possesses more than its monthly averages during the Bush administration.

The conspiracy theory that incubated the bill is that the Obama administration is trying to buy up bullets so ordinary Americans have less access to them in the marketplace.

As the news story says, even the NRA isn’t buying that one.

Joe Nocera has a new Gun Report up, and it begins this way —

Every day, when Jennifer Mascia and I compile this report, we are stunned at the number of children who are accidentally shot — and often killed — because a gun-owning adult in their household has put a loaded gun someplace where they can get their hands on it and shoot it. We have three such examples in today’s report, one of which resulted in the death of a 4-year-old in Houston. Other nations mandate that gun owners keep their firearms in safes bolted to the floor. Why don’t we?

And the answer is that Gun Absolutists fight such restrictions tooth and nail. I have had this conversation in online forums, many times — I’ll begin by saying that anyone who keeps a loaded gun where a child could reach it is a fool. This will be followed by X number of Gun Absolutists saying that if they followed recommended protocol — unloaded gun and ammunition separated and both locked up — then they won’t have access to their guns fast enough when Bad People break through the door to kill them. And they have a right to protect their families.

They also assure me that their kids have been/will be taught not to mess with Daddy’s firearms, so there’s no problem. This tells me the writer either has no children, or else his wife is doing all the child-raising. Either way, he seems to have no real-world experience raising children, because even the “best” child will do things they know they are not supposed to do. And very small children (like a four-year-old) are often not mentally organized enough to grasp (or long remember) what they are being told.

The father of the four-year-old was arrested, btw, but not because his carelessness caused the death of his child. He was arrested for possessing a stolen gun.

Elsewhere, men standing in line outside a gun shop in Lubbock, Texas, got into a disagreement as to who was where, and one of them pulled a gun and threatened to shoot. The men were in line to buy ammunition, waiting for the store to open.

Shiplord Kirel comments:

These lines form outside every large ammo retailer when word spreads that the store has received a new shipment. The panic-crazed mob then cleans out the newly arrived inventory in a matter of minutes. My brother says he has seen the same thing in Colorado Springs and guns have been drawn there, too.

They’re going to obtain the means to defend themselves or die trying, I guess.

Also, there are updates on the status of George Zimmerman; see Mark Follman at Mother Jones and Judd Legum at Think Progress.

Let us consider what is wrong here —

Yesterday, Missouri state Rep. Mike Leara (R) proposed legislation making it a felony for lawmakers to so much as propose many bills regulating guns. Leara’s bill provides that “[a]ny member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony.”

“Republican government” in the title refers to republic, “A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them,” says the dictionary. Apparently Rep. Leara thinks this republicanism thing is a threat to freedom, and he’s going to nip it in the bud.

The biggest problem with the bill, however, is that it almost certainly violates the Missouri Constitution, which provides that “[s]enators and representatives . . . shall not be questioned for any speech or debate in either house in any other place.” Although there are very few court decisions interpreting this clause in the Missouri Constitution, the United States Constitution contains a parallel clause guaranteeing that federal lawmakers shall not be called to account for “any Speech or Debate in either House” of Congress, and courts commonly interpret parallel provisions of state and the U.S. Constitution to have similar meanings.

In other words the Constitution protects the freedom of legislatures to propose any damnfool thing they want, because the guys who wrote the Constitution trusted the process of republican government. That is, they trusted the wisdom of voters and the constitutional process by which laws are proposed, debated, passed (or not) and possibly challenged in court if the law is unconstitutional. Leara reveals he isn’t having any of that, and wants to restrict the process to secure the outcome he desires.

Freedom, Mr. Leara? Yep, that’s what he says —

Leara’s bill comes amidst a flurry of red state legislation aimed at nullifying any new firearms regulations coming out of Washington in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. (The White House and other supporters of new gun control have said over and over their proposals do not violate the Constitutional right to bear arms.)

Unlike some of the sponsors of those bills, Leara said he doesn’t expect his bill to pass. He filed the bill criminalizing certain bill language to make a point about freedom, he said.

“I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians,” he said in a statement sent to TPM Tuesday. “I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

Are we being nibbled to death by Stupid, or what?

I found this on Facebook this morning. I commented on the size of the magazine, that nobody has that many crazy ex-husbands. The people (all men, it appears) liking the image didn’t get the joke.

Conservatives are stomping around calling the Violence Against Women Act a waste of money, and then in the next breath they argue that women have to be armed with AR-15s because they never know when four or five hardened criminals are going to break into her house and attack her simultaneously. Seriously —

Women’s Forum’s Gayle Trotter said in her prepared testimony. An assault weapons ban, she said, would “harm women the most” because “guns are the great equalizer in a confrontation.” And that doesn’t just mean handguns. That means military-style rifles. When questioned, Trotter specifically singled out the AR-15 as an important weapon for women, essentially because it looks cool. Women like the AR-15 because “they’re light, they’re easy to hold, and most importantly, their appearance,” Trotter said. The rifle is intimidating, she said, and then appeared to riff on a hypothetical home invasion in which one would be necessary. “Three, four, five violent intruders in her home — with her children screaming in the background — the peace of mind that comes with a scary looking gun…gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened, violent criminals.” Trotter said. “I speak on behalf of millions of american women who urge you to defend our Second Amendment right to choose to defend ourselves.”

I infer from this that conservatives really hate it when multiple strangers break into women’s homes to assault them, but if your husband or boyfriend, current or ex, roughs you up from time to time, that’s his right. It’s probably your fault, anyway.

And note that the above-mentioned Ms. Trotter is opposed to allowing women to serve in combat.

Anyway — the scenario in which multiple criminal strangers burst into a woman’s home must be rare, as I could find no examples of such a thing happening. Women are far more likely to be attacked by men they know. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Satistics, in 2007 only 10 percent of female homicide victims in the U.S. were killed by strangers. Historically, women have had most to fear from current and former husbands or lovers. However, in recent years rates of “intimate” violence have gone down quite a bit, possibly because of the Violence Against Women Act that righties think is a waste of time.

See also —

Writing in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Wiebe reported on a case-controlled study in which household were matched on a number of demographic factors, and then incidences of gun violence were compared. They found that people who keep a gun in their home are almost twice as likely to die in a gun-related homicide, and that the risk was especially greater for women: women living in a home where there is a gun are almost three times more likely to die in a gun-related homicide than men similarly situated. The risk of killing oneself using a gun was almost 17 times greater for persons who live in a home where there is a gun, compared to those in homes without guns. (Wiebe D. Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2003; 41:771-82).

How often does a woman successfully defend herself with a gun? We get a hint here —

In 2009, justifiable homicides involving women killing men with a firearm occurred in: Louisiana (1); Michigan (2); Mississippi (1); Oklahoma (2); Oregon (2); South Carolina (1); Tennessee (1); Texas (2); and, Virginia (1). Of these, handguns were used in: Louisiana (1); Michigan (2); Mississippi (1); Oklahoma (1); Oregon (2); South Carolina (1); Texas (1); and, Virginia (1).

I don’t have data for the number of women murdered by men in the U.S. in 2009, justified or otherwise, but I’m betting it’s a lot more than 23. Note that women get killed in gun-friendly Louisiana at higher rates than anywhere else in the U.S.

Now, I don’t blame a woman who has a crazy, angry ex out there somewhere for keeping a gun in her home. I might do the same thing, as well as installing alarms and adopting a very large dog. But what the data tell us clearly is that encouraging women to be armed is no replacement for the Violence Against Women Act, which really does seem to have made a difference.

Earlier this week, an Atlanta homeowner shot and killed a young man who had pulled into his driveway by mistake. Something very similar happened in Baton Rouge more than 20 years ago. Some of you may remember this.

Yoshihiro Hattori was a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who came to live with a Baton Rouge family in 1992. He and a young man from his host family were going to a Halloween party and mistook another house for the party house.

The boys went to the door and rang the doorbell, and when they got no response they turned to walk back to their car. But then the homeowner, Rodney Peairs, stormed out of his house with a .44-magnum revolver and yelled, “freeze!” Yoshihiro, probably not recognizing he was in danger, turned toward Pearis and said, “We’re here for the party.” Pearis fired his gun into Yoshihiro’s chest and ran back into his house.

Webb Haymaker, the boy with Yoshihiro, ran to a neighbor house and asked for help. The Pearis family did nothing, but remained in their house. An ambulance came, but Yoshihiro died before reaching the hospital.

At first, the Baton Rouge police declined to press charges against Pearis. Possibly only because of widespread outrage in Japan and pressure from higher officials was Pearis finally charged with manslaughter. At the trial, the defense portrayed Yoshihiro Hattori as scary and Rodney Peairs as just a regular guy defending his family. The defense pointed out that Yoshihiro was a 130-pound boy (dressed as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever) who had just rung the doorbell — not exactly the usual behavior of a home invader. But naturally, Peairs was acquitted.

Now, as I remember it, the story got a lot of attention, and a lot of people thought it was outrageous, although many others defended Pearis and thought he was justified to shoot Yoshihiro. But there also was a widespread resignation about the acquittal — that’s just the way things are in America, especially in the South. It stinks, but nothing can be done.

This week’s shooting in Atlanta isn’t getting nearly as much attention, but the shooter was charged with murder pretty quickly. So far I haven’t heard anyone say the shooter, Phillip Walker Sailors, was justified in shooting a young man for the crime of pulling into his driveway. Perhaps someone has, and I’ve missed it. It will be interesting to see how and whether justice is served. I would also like to gauge if public reaction to this week’s shooting is different in any way from the reaction to the shooting in 1992. Have we progressed at all?

Related — here’s a gun control ad made to air during the Super Bowl.

Here’s another story about a homeowner defending himself with a gun, which was discussed in the last post, Guns and News — this is from Raw Story —

Gwinnett County jail records obtained by The Atlanta Journal Constitution indicated that Phillip Walker Sailors was charged on Sunday with the murder of Rodrigo Abad Diaz.

Friends who were in the car with Diaz told WSB-TV that they were trying to pick up a friend on the way to ice skating on Saturday but their GPS directed them to the wrong address. The friends said that they waited in the driveway for a few minutes before Sailors emerged from the house and fired a gun into the air.

Gandy Cardenas, who was in the car, recalled to WAGA that the homeowner made no effort to speak to the group before opening fire.

“He didn’t talk to them, he just started shooting,” Cardenas explained. “The first shot was in the air.”

At that point, Diaz tried to turn the car around to leave, but Sailors fired another shot, striking the immigrant on the left side of the head. The group, which included a 15 and an 18 year old, said that Sailors held them at gunpoint until police arrived.

Rodrigo Abad Diaz, an immigrant from Cuba, was 22 years old. Phillip Walker Sailors was a law-abiding citizen — well, until he’s convicted — exercising his Second Amendment rights.

The New York Times has a heartbreaking story about the police officers who responded to the Newtown, Massachusetts Connecticut school shooting. Some of the officers are suffering from PTSD, and at least one hasn’t been able to return to work.

The stories also reveal the deep stress that lingers for officers who, until Dec. 14, had focused their energies on maintaining order in a low-crime corner of suburbia. Some can barely sleep. Little things can set off tears: a television show, a child’s laughter, even the piles of gifts the Police Department received from across the country.

One detective, who was driving with his wife and two sons, passed a roadside memorial on Route 25 two weeks after the shooting, and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I just lost it right there, I couldn’t even drive,” the detective, Jason Frank, said.

Some government hoax, huh? And Joe Nocera has compiled highlights of last week’s gun news, including a teenager who accidentally shot his two-year-old brother, an eleven-year-old girl shot (deliberately) in the face by her father, and a drunken man who shot and killed his own dog.

But that was just last week. If we google for news stories going back to the beginning of January, we find the South Carolina man who accidentally shot and killed his eight-year-old son while cleaning his gun; the Pennsylvania man who shot and killed his seven-year-old son when the gun in his car accidentally discharged; the Virginia man accidentally shot and killed by a juvenile relative who found a loaded gun on a table; the Kansas four-year-old who was shot and killed by a gun left on a table by a babysitter. It’s not clear if the toddler shot himself or if one of the other small children left unsupervised in the room set the gun off.

And I could go on and on; start to google for this stuff and there seems to be no end to it. Slate is keeping a running tally of gun deaths they can verify, but of course that’s not all of them. Most of these stories were covered only by local media and don’t pop up in national news coverage, so Slate asks people to send them links to the local stories to confirm that they happened.

If you google for recent news stories of citizens defending themselves with guns, you get a lot of hits, too. But many are of the same story that got covered a lot. Here’s the New York Daily News (turn sound off if you’re at work) covering the story of a Georgia mother with twin children who shot a home invader. That story got reported copiously all over the country. The Washington Post even seems to have snipped at the New York Times because the Times decided not to run a story about it.

There are other “citizen shoots burglar/home invader” stories from this January, many of which were widely reported. In some cases, though, it turned out the “invader” was not necessarily an invader. But the pattern appears to be that every time a citizen defends himself or herself with a gun, it gets on Fox News and is repeated in news outlets around the country. When the babysitter leaves a loaded gun on a table and a four-year-old dies, it’s local news.

BTW, there’s been another accidental shooting at a gun show. An Iowa gun dealer shot himself in the hand while testing a gun he didn’t think was loaded. Well, better his hand than a child’s head.