State Police say a Fayette County woman was killed when the firearm her eight-year-old son was cleaning went off.
Sgt. Michael Baylous, spokesman for the State Police, said Jennifer Bailes, 29, was shot and killed Tuesday morning at her home in Hico, which is just outside of Anstead.
via here.
My heart is heavy reading this…
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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This is indeed a tragedy, but an altogether preventable one.
What on Earth was this crazy woman thinking??? Seriously??
That is Abigael’s age…
It’s definitely horrifying, but I know that neither you nor Leigh Anne would EVER allow Abigael to handle a firearm, right? Let alone clean one…
Right. We have two – hidden away, with the bullets hidden far, far away
My dad was 7 when he was given his first 22 rifle. He grew up on a farm and was expected to provide a rabbit for the pot.
When I turned 7 he said; “What was my pop thinking!” and I had to wait till I was 14 to get an air rifle. Though we had been brought up since birth to shoot, hunt and fish.
Now I’m 44 and don’t have firearms and my sons have never handled them. Though I am not against the idea of them doing so – under strict supervised conditions…
I’ve taken my oldest two out… but not with them shooting. I’ve given my son a BB gun, but he can only shoot it with me present. But to clean that type of weapon… at 8?
Very tragic.
Never held a gun. Never want to ever hold a gun.