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."
