Fuck upon a mountain of fucks...!
A classmate of a young family member recently succumbed to a torrent of school bullying and chose to end it in suicide. 8th grade, barely 14 years old, gone.
The preventable fact is that his father’s gun was kept out in the open, loaded, unsecured, in a US State where a law exists requiring guns in the homes where minors are present must be secured with a trigger kick, or stored unloaded in a locked gun safe. In this case the law was not followed by the father. There are provisions for a criminal citation, fine, and jail time, but prosecutors rarely adhere to such guidelines. They can’t bring the child back, the family is suffering anyway... but seriously, some US gun reform is sorely needed. Something with real teeth in it, with widely publicized arrests and trials for those who are accountable for another’s death or injury.
I live in Pennsylvania, a sportsmen state, many hunters, and a proliferation of underground quasi militia groups ~ so add in those who are just collectors, those who feel the need for armed personal security, and yeah, guns in great numbers abound everywhere up here.
I’m getting a tsunami of negativity when I approach people up here with my 2nd Amendment commentary about the need for major gun reform. I’m trying not to be as incensed as they are when they blindly proclaim rhetoric praising their Constitutional 2nd Amendment rights. I try to get them to answer “what if it was your family?” but they keep bloviating, and so I stop for the sake of my own sanity.
So I’m left wondering, sad, a few less friends, and waiting for funeral arrangements after the autopsy is complete. Life goes on, but not for this child.