The Blog of Harald

A 7 year old girl shot her 6 year old brother dead on Saturday in Mississauga. They found, and were playing with, a .45 semi-auto handgun (unregistered) when the girl pointed the gun at her brother and shot him in the head.

The owner of the gun was the two kids’ 22 year old brother, he has been arrested and charged with criminal negligence causing death and numerous firearms offences, including unsafe storage of both the gun and the ammunition.

The brother (through his lawyer) is pleading not guilty and planning on fighting the charges. So much for taking responsibility for his actions…

The boy is dead. The girl is permanently scarred. The family is irreparably damaged. All because this 22 year old is an idiot.

As chronicled elsewhere in this weblog, I have a friend with many guns. His pistols are locked in a small safe; all of his longarms and ammunition are locked in a separate steel cabinet, which has its own hookup to the alarm system. In addition, they all have trigger locks.

Leaving a weapon lying around unlocked is bad enough; lying around unlocked and loaded? I hope they bury this guy.

Naturally, the pistol was unregistered, showing yet again that the bungled Canadian firearm registry is useless as well as mismanaged.

Story links:
The Toronto Star
The Globe and Mail
Canada.com
CBC News