The lesson apparently wasn't learned if it has now happened if it's happened to two sheriff deputy's children. If this is how the "professionals" protect their own, how can lay people be trusted?

Add this about the same time. Happened about a mile north of me.

http://www.kvewtv.com/article/2010/sep/14/accidental-shooting-kills-one-yr-old-walla-walla/

You or I as civilians would be hauled in on a negligence charge or such. I'm sure the Battle Ground cops will decide that this is just a terrible accident and they have suffered enough.

It's hard to understand how a 3-year old could muster the strength to pull the trigger, or, frankly, why a police officer would leave a loaded gun where a child could reach it.

Full disclosure: When I was a child of about 8, I found a loaded handgun in my parent's closet. My father walked in the room at the moment I pointed it at my 14-year old brother, lunged toward me and grabbed the weapon from my hand.

To this day, I do not know whether I might have injured or killed my brother if my father hadn't been there to take the weapon away from me.

I'd love to see a study of the number of accidental gun deaths vs. the number of deaths, attacks, rapes prevented by owning a gun.

Not that it matters, but it would be interesting to see if owning a gun actually makes you and your family safer.

I do know that the Freakonomics guys did a study and the most dangerous thing you can own is a pool. More kids die in pools than by accidental shootings. It's like 10-1.

When I was young, both my grandparents and grandmother had rifles and shotguns around. I knew it, but could never find them. In both cases they were stored so high no furniture or footstool climbing child could get near them. (My great grandmother turns out hid them 6ft up, behind her home-canned vegetables. Like kid-kryptonite) They could get to the guns in a hurry, but no child could. You've got to hide guns at least as well as the christmas presents.

I do know that the Freakonomics guys did a study and the most dangerous thing you can own is a pool.

I'd say the most dangerous thing you can own is a car, but, yeah, pools are super dangerous. For the same reason this poor kid died--little kids have an amazing ability to walk into a room and to find THE most dangerous thing in it instantly. If I leave my 18 month old son alone for any length of time, he will either badly injure himself, or destroy some important possession. If we owned a gun, I have no doubt he'd find it (accidentally, mind you) in a matter of days. Kids are that way. If your gun is not locked up, you're asking for serious trouble.

My little kid is into everything, he's nearly one year old. I bought a quick release gun safe for my one loaded defense gun in the house. I press 4 buttons in a certain sequence, and bam, the door opens. If the buttons get pressed in the wrong sequence more than three times, it locks up and needs a key. All other guns are packed away, way out of reach without ammo in them. When I was a kid growing up, my dad always had a gun in his night stand. I was disciplined well and I never messed with it. But it was never just laying around where a toddler not knowing anything could pick it up.

It is hard to believe that anyone leaves a loaded gun around. I grew up with guns (pistols, shotguns, and rifles) and I never saw them loaded other than when we were out shooting. I may understand a cop having a loaded weapon; however, it would be their service weapon.

I'd say the most dangerous thing you can own is a car,

So true.

I was raised around guns in the house and at my grandparents house. I was taught by the power of a hand on my butt to not even think about touching a gun. When I was a bit older I was taught to treat every gun as if it is loaded. I never, and I mean never, touched a gun as a kid without express permission.

During the first year of its operation, more people were killed in Washington County by MAX then were killed by handguns.

I seem to remember reading once (sorry, not sure where or when...it's been some time ago) that if a home has a firearm in it, the firearm is 20 times more likely to be used to shoot a resident of the home than an intruder.

Think I'll just remain unarmed and avoid MAX.

Anyone thinking what I'm thinking? Stressed out cop at home, couple of drinks, his little kid pestering him...Nah, I don't want to think that.

Gil Johnson, this was also the first thing that I thought when I read the time of the accident. 3 year old....10 pm. I'm thinking maybe noone had the energy or patience to sing or read this child to sleep at a proper hour after a nice bath...so, so sad.

Gil, unless I watch too much TV, I would think the SOP for an accidential shooting would be to test the clothes, hands, et cetera of all family members for gunpowder residue.

Several years ago, my wife went through a "gun safety" course as a requirement to get a concealed handgun permit. (It's a long story but even though she had a restraining order her ex-husband was issuing daily death threats at the time.) Anyhow, the instructor actually encouraged the people taking the course to hide loaded handguns all over their homes so that no matter where they were when an intruder came in, they would have a loaded gun ready to go. It was pretty frikin unreal to hear that such recklessness was actually encouraged by someone giving a "safety" course. Even if there were no kids around who's to say that a burglar hasn't broken in while you were away and is sitting there with your gun waiting to blow your head off when you get home? Some gun nuts just take it a little too far, and it wouldn't surprise me if this is one of those situations. Sad story and really shocking considering that a law enforcement officer should absolutely know better than to leave a gun out where a little kid could get at it. Why not just raise a rattle snake as a pet and let the kid play with it?

Usual Kevin,

I personally find it very effective to throw a stun grenade into my house before entering just to make sure nobody is waiting for me.

Travis

Doesn't one of Mayor Creepy's new gun guidelines assign some liability to parents for allowing children access to firearms?

Travis, a cop would definitely know the SOP, wouldn't he?

to Not That Steve:
the 20x risk factor that you recall is from the work of Dr Arthur Kellerman. He actually found a 3x risk factor of a firearm killing or injuring someone in the home. However his study may have been skewed. He only counted bad guys DOA, he did not allow for bad guys chased off without a shot and he um, included dead gang bangers snuffed by each other as being killed by an acquaintance or intimate. Oopsie.

An cop should know better than this. I happen to agree with some of the other posts that something is not quite right here. It was late for a kid to be up. Most 3 yols cannot pull the trigger on a single or double action revolver and the safety should have been engaged on a semiauto pistol. But Dad wears a badge so case closed.

It was late for a kid to be up. Most 3 yols cannot pull the trigger on a single or double action revolver and the safety should have been engaged on a semiauto pistol.

Too late for the kid to be up? So we think that the family irresponsible enough to leave a loaded handgun lying around is going to be super responsible about ensuring that their kids are asleep on time?

For all of you with opinions originating from media hype, some simple statistics. The CDC lists unintentional death as the leading casuse of death for age group 1-18 (2007, last reporting year). There were 8430 deaths. Of those, firearms accounted for 121 (90 deaths 1-16 and 50 deaths 12 and under). This is certainly not an epidemic. These numbers are for the nation where approximately 50 million households own firearms.

This is an avoidable tragedy, but ultimately, so are most accidents. It is a much more significant danger for you to use your cell phone with your kids in the car.

See for your self at:
http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe?_service=v8prod&_server=app-v-ehip-wisq.cdc.gov&_port=5082&_sessionid=rYM4EyBqL52&_program=wisqars.details10.sas&_service=&type=U&prtfmt=STANDARD&age1=1&age2=18&agegp=1-18&deaths=8430&_debug=0&lcdfmt=customðnicty=0&ranking=10&deathtle=Death

Approximately 2 out 3 gun deaths every year are suicides, many in the home. The majority of the rest are criminals shooting other criminals.

Professor Kleck's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kleck research estimates 2.5 million defensive uses of firearms per year (in most cases no shot is fired and no news story) and even his critics reluctanly conceed the number to be in the several hundred thousand range.

Research the issues, know the facts. http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/search/label/DefensiveGunUse

Sorry, apparently the CDC web link did not work as intended. Here is the main link and you need to input the data parameters.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html