Child dies after accidentally being shot in the chest at a target practice area

www.azfamily.com Child dies after accidentally being shot in the chest at a target practice area

The sheriff’s office says it will complete its investigation.

55 comments

There was a lot of poor choices working in concert to allow this accident to even happen, but based off the article there was nothing maliciously stupid, or grossly negligent in the context of rural southern AZ.
- What does that mean? Negligence is not a regional concept?
  
  The difference between negligence and gross negligence is quite significant, and contextually dependent.
  
  This family lives near the border in a rural desert, which is typically flat, open, and sparsely populated.
  
  ATVs are a pretty common way to get around, even for younger kids, and so is target shooting.
  
  Poor choices were clearly made (negligence), but nothing either party did was done with a reckless indifference and disregard for life or property (gross negligence). At least, assuming no other facts come out that significantly alter what was said in the article.
  
  If this same incident occurred in the middle of an urban, or even suburban, city with a medium to high population density, then it would be grossly negligent to have kids on ATVs, or to shoot .22 caliber air rifles.
  
  Context matters.
  
  Not sure what op meant, but there's a lot of angles that I can see it being true. Having a shooting range on personal property is very different in rural Arizona than places with higher population density. The risk is objectively not as large. The space makes it unlikely to hit anything you wouldn't want to target, and it's very ingrained in gun culture to be smart about what direction you fire.
  
  They may have also been referring to accepted risk vs freedoms. Gun people understand that there's a risk to owning guns, but it's an acceptable risk because they value guns, much like how people understand the risk of traveling by vehicle yet still choose to.
You know, whenever a kid gets accidentally shot, I think of all the other 359x359 directions the bullet could have gone and wonder how many millions of stray shots are flying around.
- New years in some places are literally Russian roulette.
  
  What do you mean?
I feel like by the time the tide turns on gun control people will be so frustrated that repeal of the second will be on the table.
- The article says it was actually an air rifle pellet, which is probably always going to be legal. They are quite powerful for some models.
- This isn’t a gun control issue.
  
  You are right, it is not a gun control issue, it is a gun culture problem.
  
  deleted by creator
  
  Isn't it?
  
  Where I live, this would be impossible because you wouldn't be allowed to shoot guns somewhere kids can ride through. That's gun control, and it includes air guns.
  
  Oh weird I thought a child was murdered with a gun
- Not as long as parents like this are bringing sacrifices
  
  Thank you for your contribution, Vaginal_blood_fart.
How about you don't let the kid play anywhere near a shooting range let alone leave the possibility for them to drive right onto it with an ATV. It sounds more like reckless manslaughter rather than an accident to me
- It wasn’t a shooting range. That part of Arizona is pretty rural, and it looks like they rolled onto some land where people were doing target practice. Not uncommon for a rural community.
  
  This is exactly how I ended up getting shot at while hiking. A bunch of drunk assholes decided to do target practice without checking what was down range, or they just didn't care that they were shooting towards a trail. Either way, bullets were hitting trees near us so we took off running back the way we came.
- It’s pretty common in AZ that off-road trails where you take vehicles double as target practice areas. On the side of a trail will be an area with backstops (basically the side of a mountain or just dirt hills) where people setup targets and shoot. The desert is a big place out there but there are also a lot of random dirt bikes and ATVs around. Supposed to be the responsibility of the people doing target shooting to watch out for people.
  
  Gross negligence to shoot targets anywhere in front of any kind of trail.
  
  Supposed to be but most gun owners are drunk idiots so here we are.
This is no such thing as an accidental shooting. There are only negligent discharges.

You don't accidently shoot a fucking gun and it's brain dead of this new organization to have this headline.
an air rifle can kill?? wtf kind of air rifle is this?
- I'm sure a paint ball to the eye could potentially kill someone too.
If only she had a gun to defend herself with!
Just another NRA Freedom Celebration™ folks, nothing to see here.
- Shooting a BB gun / air rifle on some private acreage isn’t exactly crazy gun culture.
  
  A .22-caliber pellet fired from a high-powered air rifle isn’t exactly a toy there bud. Don’t make this out to be a plastic airsoft pellet gun. Those don’t kill people when hit in the chest.
  
  They bounce off.
- Just another moron who either didn't read, or understand the article, and definitely doesn't understand the realities of living in a rural desert like southern Arizona.
  
  I read the article. And how about you see someone about that temper of yours, eh? Getting so angry that you insult random people in the internet? You might want to see someone about that.

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