Jamie Gilt loves her guns. She has a page titled Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense. So you’d think she’d be a regular poster child for the NRA.
She’s in the hospital now because, as she was toodling down the Florida highways in her pickup truck, her four year old son found a .45 calibre pistol in the back seat, and plugged his mom right in the torso. She’s going to live, fortunately, and will be back to praising guns soon.
I’m not laughing. I’m just kind of staggered by the explosion of cliches I’ve now read.
What do you expect when the most responsible person in the vehicle is the four year old?
That seems to be in line with general ‘gun sense’, which has no relation to good sense.
We live in a country where Yosemite Sam is apparently the model of responsible gun ownership.
I know that I really shouldn’t be finding it funny when this happens, since people are being hurt or killed, and I’m trying…but seriously. It’s gone past the point of self-parody. You’d get complaints that it’s a tired cliché if you included it in a dark comedy. It’s *incredible* that this somehow keeps happening in real life.
The real question that should be continually asked, until it sinks in, is “how in the hell did a 4-year-old get any access to a loaded gun?”. The only truthful answer is gun owner negligence, by not having the gun unloaded and secured.
For this to happen, there had to be several preceding events/offences:
1) Child not secured in backseat. Walking around untethered AND untended in backseat of a moving car on a road.
2) Gun being transported not secured in closed, locked box. Was the gun in Ms. Gilt’s unsecured handbag, which she tossed in the backseat; or was it in another place, like, oh, sliding around under the front seat? Or maybe it was in a box, but the box was unlocked and able to be opened by a 4-year-old (not childproofed).
3) Gun being transported unsecured did not have a trigger lock, placing the gun in danger of firing if the car were to swerve or be involved in an accident and the gun , moving unsecured in the passenger area were to catch the trigger on something, say a door handle, and fire the weapon.
3) Gun being transported was loaded. Again, no reason for this, unless the vehicle were actually entering a war zone where firing the pistol might be necessary, in which case the pistol should have been secured on the driver, or in another place accessible to the driver, but not the rear-seat passenger.
5) Gun being transported had a bullet in the chamber. This is extremely dangerous, making the possibility of a misfire/mistaken fire far more likely. This is almost certainly the case, as no four year old I know of has the strength and dexterity to manually chamber a round, while in a moving car, no less.
6) Gun’s safety was off. An offense in so many ways: safety off while being transported, safety off while being transported unsecured, safety off with no trigger guard, safety off in the presence of a minor . . . . Few 4 year olds have the knowledge and presence of mind to a) recognize a safety switch and b) turn it off.
7) Gun had hair-trigger and/or no safety. Again, as above in #6, plus no four year olds I know have the hand-strength to fire a .45 calibre pistol from a typical (front-facing) adult handgrip. Many toddler deaths come from toddlers holding the gun towards themselves and using both hands and their thumbs to depress the trigger.
There’s a dozen possible offenses there, more than enough to take her child from her for gross negligence and child endangerment.
So, to sum up: Ammosexual driving with an secured toddler in her car, leaves a loaded, round-chambered gun with the safety off and a hair-trigger sliding around for the toddler to play with.
Yeesh!
I feel sorry for the kid. Imagine knowing you shot your mother, even though it wasn’t his fault
She does need to be charged with some kind of criminal negligence. Her kid could as easily have discharged that gun while pointing it at his own face. If CPS could take the kid away from her, so much the better.
I forgot to say something after “Yeesh”.
This was NOT an accident.
This was gross negligence, with consequences forseeable by any reasonable person (the legal test used most frequently in the courts to determine the appropriateness of charges).
From a Salon article about the incident:
Jamie Gilt let her four-year-old shoot targets with a .22. No four year old should be encouraged to get “jacked up” to shoot guns.
Instead of trying to limit the size of magazines, or the type of weapons, those advocating gun reductions/limitations should be trying to criminalize the negligent use of weapons. Defined simply as not following gun rules, say the US army/marine safety regulations. Nothing like pointing to the safety rules of those who use guns regularly, and saying not following said rules is criminal behavior.
You want carry laws, then have the gun unloaded so it is intrinsically safe. Or, shut the fuck up as a bad, irresponsible, gun owner.
On her facebook page is a picture of new semi-auto pistol. Her text below: “My new toy just arrived! Time to clean it!:” The post has since been removed, but the point has been made:
SHE THINKS A GUN, A MACHINE DESIGNED TO KILL PEOPLE, IS A FUCKING TOY!!!!
Well, the Facebook page is gone now.
But guys! She had her new set of ginsu knives back there too, are we supposed to just ban knives now?!
Actually, probably. Really for most people it should just be squirt guns and safety scissors.
But, but… what does any of this have to do with responsible gun owners? Responsible gun owners never, ever let this sort of thing happen, because the second it happens that person is by definition not responsible! It’s not like she’s trying to represent the country’s gun owners or anything…
She’s demonstrated criminal negligence as a parent. She’s demonstrated criminal negligence as a gun owner. She needs to be prosecuted and her access to children and guns restricted.
A retired local prosecutor has already said she should not be punished at all because she has already ‘suffered enough’. Nope, she needs to suffer more: prosecution and the loss of access to children and guns.
“A retired local prosecutor has already said she should not be punished …”
You accidentally left out a word: “idiotic”, “moronic”, “fool”, ….
When we were all much younger, I was playing ‘French Cricket’ with family, and Mum had a tooth knocked out by my sister, not much older than this kid. I’m aware that sentence might not make much sense to non-aussies. For decades now, it’s still something that comes out at family Christmas and the like – I can’t imagine how this kid is going to feel knowing he shot his mum?
Also, +1 for gun negligence being treated as a serious offense. ‘Reckless endangerment’ might be applicable in Australia, I don’t know.
Maybe the kid was standing his ground, fearing for his life since mom was using a dangerous piece of equipment (car)?
@beardymcviking #18:
So you were playing the variant where you have to bowl from where you caught the ball? I’ve got to admit, that kids’ game can get dangerous if you’re at silly point or short leg. But thankfully in cricket there isn’t such a thing as point blank range.
Well, as we all know, the only thing that can stop a bad 4-year-old with a gun…
To this outside observer, and former firearm owner, what is the most baffling aspect of US gun culture is not so much the proliferation of firearms but the cavalier attitude to safety, it’s almost “Third World”.
@16 nutella,
“A retired local prosecutor has already said she should not be punished at all because she has already ‘suffered enough’.”
Agreed, that’s a completely ludicrous statement. Using that logic, any criminal who suffered injuries as a consequence of committing a crime could escape prosecution.
@18 beardymcviking
“I can’t imagine how this kid is going to feel knowing he shot his mum?”
How would his mum feel if the kid had shot himself?
Well, I’m back from my vacation from the atheist blogosphere. Unsurprisingly, there’s a recent incident of negligence by a gun owner gracing PZ’s blog. Life goes on in America, home of the well-armed. I wonder when the trolls will arrive and play No True Responsible Gun Owner.
@#12:
The twitter link on the rawstory page still works.
Um. And there are a shitload of comments on the picture about the incident.
And in other news, raw milk politicians give themselves food poisoning by celebrating legalizing raw milk with raw milk.
The schadenfreude is too rich today.
*It’s sucky that she got shot, and I hope she gets well, but she has no one to blame but herself.
After causing her own shooting and traumatizing her child, she’s probably on a Gilt trip.
I’m not glad this happened to her, because no one deserves to be shot. On the other hand, I’m very glad this story didn’t end in a worse way. What if he’d shot himself? Or what if she’d died? Or not gotten the vehicle stopped safely after being shot (because the child wasn’t wearing a seatbelt)– they could have both been killed. This could have been much more tragic.
At least this way, she’s the one who paid for her mistake. For the “child fires loaded weapon” stories, that’s pretty rare. And again, I’m not saying she deserved this. What she deserves is jail time, not a bullet.
leftOver1under — You know you forgot the “bada boom.” Ten demerits for irresponsible pun ownership.
robro – Spoken from jealousy because you didn’t think it first.
Just another responsible gunowner, until the day she wasn’t. Like all the others who either got themselves or their loved ones shot and/or killed.
For everyone who’s wondering why she was transporting a loaded and unsecured gun, it’s obvious: She had to have the gun available for “self defense”. Just in case a terrorist came up to her car out of nowhere and…did terrorist things. Then she’d be glad she had it out and not hidden away in a locked box, wouldn’t she?
In other words, this is a perfect demonstration of why guns are and always will be crappy weapons for self defense. Because you’ve either got to keep them out and ready to fire (i.e. safety off, bullet in the chamber) constantly, including while you’re driving around with a 4 year old, driving (even without a 4 year old) on a twisty highway, sleeping and inclined to react randomly on waking, drunk at a party, etc, or it’s no use as a defensive weapon at all because the “bad guy” can get you before you even get it out and ready to fire.
Actually, I’m not particularly sorry she was shot, especially since she’s going to survive. I’m sorry that her kid will have to live with this, especially given that she’s probably going to do something horrible to the kid when she recovers. It’s in no way the kid’s fault but he’s probably the one that’s going to take the blame for the parents’ stupidity. And I’m sorry the social and legal situation in the US is such that anyone could be in this situation. But given the world as it is, I think the more ammosexuals who accidentally, ridiculously, publicly, and survivably get hurt with guns due to their own stupidity the better. Let the silent majority know how stupid and dangerous they really are.
@31dianne
“…got to keep them out and ready to fire”
Yes, then of course, you’d scare the bejeezus out of your fellow firearm fondlers, who would probably shoot first. They’re barking mad fantasists.
What’s the problem?
Clearly she was the bad guy and her 4-year old son was the good guy.
Some yes, and perhaps lots of no-ish: It’s not a single-solution problem (as long as the Second Amendment is interpreted as applying to individuals), so I’d never say there is any one solution. Mandatory safety rules & training — Yes, provided that are based on, as suggested, the military rules and not devised by the NRA. Magazine capacity limits — Feck Yes, No civilian has any possible use for a machine-gun. Gun type restrictions — Fecking YES, Very few civilians have a plausible case for a weapon designed to be used on humans. Keep the guns disassembled and separated from its ammunition, keep both gun parts and ammunition in locked strongboxes or other secured storage, Don’t have a gun, yes, Yes, Yes…
What I’d like to see is a MADD-ish effort on guns: The MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) campaign of some years ago completely turned the tide on DUI, from a “trivial” offense frequently(?) taken not-so-seriously to a non-trivial problem taken, in the main (as far as I know) much more seriously. Having said that, I have no clear idea how a “MAUS” (Mothers Against Unsafe Shooters) would work…
Saad @ 34:
Well, that’s kinda hard to say.
I mean, everyone knows that good guy guns are morally opposed to shooting good guys, that’s why good guys can’t ever make a mistake while packing.
On the other hand, she lived, and everyone knows that good guy guns will always produce a perfect killshot when fired.
…maybe she was supposed to stagger back and fall off to her death like bad guys typically do.
dianne @31
Yup, and it’s something most every gun owner who’s actually been in a dangerous bad situation has learned first hand. There’s so many stories of people who’ve held the fantasy of “gunning down the bad mass shooter” who’ve realized in the moment that everything’s too chaotic to actually stop a mass shooter with a gun. Or people who’ve been physically attacked despite having a gun, because actual violent criminals don’t signal their intent across the street in front of the person and then casually stroll over while remaining in line of sight. Or people who’ve been attacked with their own guns, where someone who means them harm also knows them and thus knows where the gun is stored and when they’re likely to be asleep or otherwise distracted.
And that’s before getting to the reality of everything you said and how this fantasy of “protection” leads to unsafe storage (and thus more accidental shootings of family members) and too easy access for abusers, children playing, and family members who are struggling with suicidal ideation.
But hey, the fantasy is great propaganda for a gun industry that realizes that there is literally no good reason for someone to own a gun in the modern day (no one relies on hunting for their primary access to food and guns are the worst fucking “protection” because they escalate everything to a kill or be killed situation on top of everything above, and the cost of treating deadly weapons as “toys” is such a socially toxic idea that it directly leads to the sort of cavalier attitude towards guns we have in America), but that stoking racist fears of “dangerous criminal types, wink wink” and hard selling the fantasy that someday you might have an excuse to kill someone not-white for funsies makes for good profit margins.
Best part is that all your customers will be just as desperate as you to hide the real human cost of the society this creates and all the bodies and injuries that come with.
Anyone else find it ironic that the public has to go through security checks at GOP rallies? SHouldn’t all those guns keep everyone safe?
Golly. I wonder which “well-trained militia” she belongs to?
I just learned that Gilt is from Jacksonville, Fl, although the incident occurred in a neighboring county. Totally fitting of my home town. Perhaps I should post this story on my Facebook page to needle my brother. He still lives there and was very proud a year ago or so that the governor had signed an open carry law.
Incidentally, I clicked that first link in the OP to Gilt’s Facebook page only to learn that the page isn’t available now.
Oh, thank god I’m the first to say it:
“If only there’d been MORE GUNS, this wouldn’t have happened!”
@41: Well, I suppose she could have shot the toddler first, but I hope not even a gun fondler would think that a good solution. Um…if she’d had a gun in her hand as she drove she could have shot the bullet out of the air as it came towards her? No? That’s all I’ve got.
I can’t help but think if this was a neglectful “muslim-looking” gun fondler, there’d be conservatives saying this was an ISIS inspired attack or an attempted honor killing from the kid to their mother.
If the boy had shot himself, this would have been just another case of a kid getting hold of a gun and shooting himself. Happens all the damn time in the USA, and barely makes the local news because it’s so fucking common.
Whereas by adding the rich, delicious irony of a woman who touts guns being shot by her young child, this case becomes distinctive and entertaining (for certain values of “entertaining”) and gets a lot more coverage than it otherwise would.
Whether that translates to more people making calls for safer gun handling, I don’t know. But would be interesting if it did. Human psychology is so weird.
I’m glad she got (non-fatally) shot and nobody else was hurt. Her kid could have died, a bullet could have hit someone outside of her truck, she could have crashed into someone else after getting hit, etc. I generally don’t wish harm on anyone but people like Gilt endanger everyone around them.
Can you imagine the trauma that child would have suffered if a trooper hadn’t found the mother in time to get her to a hospital?
@ Nerd of Redhead #11
While I do think that limits on magazine size and gun types are also a good idea, I agree completely that negligent gun use should be aggressively prosecuted (isn’t is already criminalized but rarely prosecuted?). Heck, even the NRA *should* be behind that 100%.
According to this:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/officials-4-year-old-shot-mom-unsure-how-he-got-gun/ar-AAgClQb?li=BBnbfcL
the Florida Department of Children and Families is investigating the situation.
But also according to the same article, leaving a loaded gun where a child has access to it is a MISDEMEANOR. How the fuck is that not a felony in any sane world.
GunSense is Hemorrhage-forming
Here’s the comment I left on Raw Story regarding this incident.
Dammit, stop calling it that! This was no accident! This was the perfectly predictable result of leaving an unsecured gun in reach of a toddler. It happens all the fucking time, and anyone with an iota of sense will take simple, easy precautions to make sure it cannot happen. Obviously, this deeply stupid woman does not have that necessary iota of sense.
To be pedantic for a moment, a 4-year-old is more accurately a preschooler. Where I am, for the purposes of child care, a toddler is defined as 1.5 years to 2.5 years. The upper limit is 3 years old.
The name “toddler” comes from a stage of learning to walk where they no longer have to hold on to something (cruising) but are still limited to short unsteady steps (toddling).
What if someone was driving next to this dimwitted idiot? Her child could shoot toward that vehicle or the idiot could’ve caused an accident with other vhicles.
I can definitely get behind this. Why anyone should walk around their daily life with gun, with a round in the chamber, with no safety / with the safety off – that is beyond my comprehension. The standard teaching is that is how you shoot yourself or someone else “accidentally”, just like this particular egregious case of what should be criminal of some kind. Criminal negligence. Endangerment. Something.
…
Those are feel-good only measures.
Magazine capacity limits are basically ineffective. Most gun death incidents involve less than 10 rounds fired, which means the 10 round maagazine limit won’t do anything for most shootings. Even for mass shootings, most happen over tens of minutes, and it only takes literally a few seconds, one, two, to reload a gun, with a modicum of practice. Several prominent mass shootings happened entirely with handguns and a bunch of 10-round magazines. Magazine capacity limits won’t do anything. Many weapons come from the factory with magazines with 15 and 20 round capacity. The 10 round capacity was basically pulled out of someone’s ass, and it has absolutely no basis in reality.
The category of semiauto weapons known as “assault weapons” is a fiction. There is no such thing as “weapon designed to kill humans” that does not include common semiauto hunting rifles. Your average semiauto hunting rifle is just as dangerous as so-called “assault weapons”. It is no accident that creators of the laws invented the word “assault weapon” which is similar to the existing term “assault rifle” which (basically) means a rifle capable of automatic fire. If you mean to ban all semiauto firearms, then I suggest that you use clear and correct terms, like “all semiauto firearms (and revolvers)”.
Assault weapon bans have nothing to do with machine guns, aka guns capable of automatic fire. My gun nut friend has the best demonstration of this: He takes a standard looking hunting rifle, wood stock, no foreword grip, no pistol grip. It has a 5 round magazine that fits flush with the body of the rifle. He then adds a 30 round “banana clip”, a forward grip, a pistol grip, a collapsible stock, a bayonet (to the bayonet mount), a scope, a bipod mount, and asks you to imagine that it’s painted military black. Voila – a transformation of any hunting rifle into a so-called “assault weapon”.
Machine guns, aka guns capable of automatic fire, have been illegal since 1934 (with some minor exceptions that I’ll spare explaining for now). AFAIK, automatic weapons have never been used in a mass shooting in the United States. At worst, only a very, very few mass shootings of of the total number of mass shootings have used such weapons. In particular, half of firearms used in mass shootings are handguns!
Citation:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
The fact of the matter is that handguns are used in like 95% or something of all gun deaths in the United States. Of those, so-called assault weapons are only 1%. The entire conversation around gun control is a joke. NRA asshats on one side, and ignorant fools on the other side who don’t know shit what they’re talking about, are making worthless and useless regulations, and when confronted with these facts, these ignorant fools will often loudly proclaim that they have pride in their ignorance and their worthless gun control measures.
You’re living in a fantasy, and you’re spending your precious political capital on do-nothing feel-good measures instead of actually trying to accomplish something productive. All you’re doing in practice is pissing off gun owners, and giving a boon to certain firearm manufacturers as they manufacture new firearms to work around the cosmetic bans, and improve their sales. I would be willing to bet that assault weapon bans are good for gun manufacturers because it increases their sales as their customers need to buy new guns to work around the useless cosmetic feature bans!
…
The legal term “misdemeanor” does not mean what you seemingly think it means. I disagree with your position. The problem is the reverse. Too many crimes nowadays are felonies. A felony used to mean a very serious crime, like rape or murder. Being a felon is serious business. Today, several states have rules that say that felons cannot vote! This peron’s voting rights should not be taken away. This person is not a felon. They should be punished appropriately, if only for proper deterrence, but this should not be a felony. Ex: Neither should mere possession of drugs – the laws that state possession of certain quantities is evidence for intent to sale – those laws are also bullshit.
Nah, it’s cool. I have it on good authority from a former friend that child gun deaths are “Darwinism in action.”
As I’ve remarked before, guns don’t kill people; toddlers kill people.
I hope the mom gets prosecuted or at least investigated fully. IMO the best thing for the child would be to see their mother, (who is the one responsible for this) take responsibility. It would be a start to alleviating the completely unearned enormous guilt trip and trauma that will shadow this poor child; perhaps for life . Since someone has posted that she does not now know how the child got the gun it seems unlikely she will take responsibility. This is sad.
A gun-loving Florida woman who was accidentally shot by her own son won’t be giving up her firearms, says her mother.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/this-interview-shows-a-gun-loving-florida-mom-learned-nothing-after-her-own-4-year-old-son-shot-her/