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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Gun nut

This seems to be about the right sentence to me. Any gun-rights advocates object?

The father of a young boy who police said shot and killed his 4-year-old sister with a gun he found in the family's home was sentenced Thursday.

 

James Booher, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of felony neglect of a dependent and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with two years suspended, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

Police said Booher's then-5-year-old son had a confrontation with his sister, Makayla Booher, shortly before the shooting at their home in the 6100 block of Massachusetts Avenue in May of last year.

 

The boy went downstairs, used a chair to reach a gun at the top of a bookcase, went back upstairs and shot his sister at close range, police said.

[. . .]

Police said the 2008 incident was not the first time that the boy had found a gun at home and fired it. Eight months prior, when the family was living at a different Indianapolis home, the boy used a chair to reach his father's gun atop a refrigerator. On that day, he fired a bullet into a kitchen cupboard, police said.

Gun enthusiasts I know don't advocate giving irresponsible gun owners a pass. And this guy epitomizes irresponsibility -- his son had gotten the gun and shot it off before, and still the weapon was left within his reach. I don't know that the prison sentence will deter other gun-owning parents in the traditional sense; I doubt there are parents out there now thinking, "whoops, better put that gun away; it changes everything if I have to go to prison for my 5-year-old shooting my 4-year-olod."

Comments

Bob G.
Fri, 04/24/2009 - 10:00am

Best way to solve a problem seems to STILL be to go directly TO THE SOURCE...and "Captain Klutz" aka Mr. Irresponsibility fits the bill here!

Sadly, it takes situations such as this to demonstrate the REAL meaning of accountability.

larry morris
Sun, 04/26/2009 - 3:14pm

No prolem here, this is just a perfect example of Irresponsibility.

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