Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Accidental Shooting of Ohio High School Football Player - Naturally No Charges

The Blade reports
Tristan Parker, who was shot in both legs, was treated at St Rita's Putnam County Ambulatory Care Center, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office. Mr. Parker, a senior at Ottawa-Glandorf High School, was a running back for the football team, sheriff deputies said.

The sheriff's office received the report of the shooting about 6:50 p.m. after emergency medical personnel attended to the victim at a residence on County Rd. 5 where he and an alleged shooter, a friend who is also 18, had stopped to seek help, sheriff deputies said.

The victim was riding in the back seat of the pickup when his friend apparently showed him his new Glock handgun, at which time it discharged. The bullet struck the victim in his right thigh and then in his left calf, before exiting, according to the sheriff's office.

The incident remained under investigation. There were no charges filed.
How could there possibly be no charges? Are 18-year-olds in Ohio allowed to have guns in their cars? Are they allowed to shoot other 18-year-olds out of gross negligence?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

8 comments:

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    ReplyDelete
  2. If you're 18, you're allowed to own a gun, you just can't buy a handgun, but you can have one that is gifted to you by a relative.

    As for the lack of charges, some of us are mature adults, not hysterical ninnies, and see no need to punish someone for something that is a true accident. Also, in the case of negligence, sometimes the victim doesn't want to press charges--that's their decision, not yours. They're the one who took the bullet. Follow your own rules and butt out of such situations.

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    Replies
    1. My rules are that you gun owners need to be responsible with your guns.

      Why don't you describe what a "true accident" is when someone gets shot unintentionally? My contention is there's no such thing, it's always negligence.

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    2. Sure, there's some amount of negligence involved--varying amounts in different situations. That doesn't keep something from being an accident.

      There's a difference between negligence and gross negligence. There's a difference between negligence and recklessness like in the Pulp Fiction clip you posted.

      Different situations call for different results. Some require punishment; some just require payment of medical bills. Treating them all equally with your one strike rule is a perfect picture of the concept of overbreadth.

      As for my comment on your rules, I was speaking of your pontifications about how the victim of a shooting gets to dictate to everyone else how something is handled. If my buddy shoots me in the foot on accident and I don't want to press charges that would result in his loss of gun rights, that's my prerogative.

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    3. Under my one-strike-you're-out program, there would be plenty of room for the judge to use discretion. Some negligence would demand jail time in addition to losing gun rights, other cases would not.

      The point is to require gun owners to be more responsible and to be held accountable when they are not.

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    4. I understand that you would vary amounts of jail time, but life-long loss of rights, any rights, is nothing to sneeze at.

      Your One Strike program goes far beyond what is justified in many cases, but it's a one size fits all reaction for All shootings, with potential jail time as mere icing on the cake.

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  3. Sure, sure. No need for charges. It's just "an unfortunate accident", right? No need to hold gun owners responsible for misusing their lethal weapons. I'm sure their personal feelings of guilt are enough to keep it from happening again...

    I'm absolutely certain that, if you'd asked this boy before the accident if he would ever accidentally shoot someone, he would have vehemently defended himself by saying he was totally responsible and knew the 4 rules.

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  4. I've only ever heard of a very few cases of unintentional shootings that I would label as "true accidents" with guns. Two of them were when hunters were out with their dogs and their dogs somehow managed to discharge the guns (though, leaving them loaded without safeties is pretty stupid), and a third one where the shooter was firing an antique gun and it misfired and exploded in his face (though it could be argued that he should have realized the danger with an antique).

    Oh, and there was another recently where a cop claimed that a bullet spontaneously exploded, without being fired (not sure I believe it, though).

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