Kim du Toit delivers one of the best lines I’ve seen in a while:

Bottom line for the parents: you were careless, twice. You didn’t teach the boy respect for a loaded gun, and you left a loaded gun where the boy could find it. Welcome to the Darwin Channel on Real Life TV.

I will never cease to be amazed at the lack of responsiblity displayed by some people.  Guns don’t “just go off” unless someone just pulls the damn trigger.  There’s no mystery about it.

I have no sympathy for someone who says, “the gun just went off.”  And before I’m accused of being a heartless bastard, I think it’s time that people started taking responsiblity for their actions.  Sometimes that means that we have to say the hard things even though people’s feelings will be hurt.

We tend to get so wrapped up in the media pity party that we forget that it’s people who are responsible for what happens (not inanimate objects).  If this fourteen year old wasn’t responsible enough to be around a firearm, then the parent had a duty to keep the firearm away from him (actually, I’d argue that the duty was to train him in proper gun handling and usage, but that’s an argument for another day).