Crickett: My First Rifle
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 2nd, 2013
Good morning!
What kind of parents would accept a gun as a gift for their 5-year old, and not know that there is a round in the chamber, which ends up killing their 2-year old? Stupid, irresponsible, negligent parents, and no doubt one’s got a little dick, if you ask me. And let’s throw in that they should be charged for child abuse too since we’re at it because that’s my opinion too.
And hey, while we’re at it, you can thank the NRA for their sick yet clever marketing of the Crickett Rifle, making it okay and accepted by stupid people who would consider gifting a gun to a 5-year old. What’at? No child should have a gun. Period.
Here’s a short write from the Huff Po, that gets to the meat of it:
Kentucky Shooting: Boy, 5, Shoots And Kills 2-Year-Old Sister, Police Say
BURKESVILLE, Ky. — Authorities in southern Kentucky say a 2-year-old girl has been accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother, who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle he received as a gift.
Kentucky State Police said the toddler was shot just after 1 p.m. CDT Tuesday in Cumberland County and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the children’s mother was at home at the time.
White told the newspaper that the boy received the rifle made for youths last year and is used to shooting it. He said the gun was kept in a corner and the family didn’t realize a shell was left inside it.
White said the shooting will be ruled accidental.
An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.
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Want to read more? Here’s a write from my local news station:
Guns for Kids Marketing Debate Ignited by Latest Child Death
The tragic shooting death of a 2-year-old girl by her 5-year-old brother this week was compounded by the fact — baffling to many who don’t use guns — that the .22 rifle the boy used has been given to him as a present.
The shooting was also the fourth this past month in which a child fired a gun at a sibling or parent. The most recent incident happened Wednesday night in Auburn, Wash., when a 7-year-old boy accidentally shot his 9-year-old sister in the leg. The boy had grabbed a .22 caliber rifle from another brother’s closet.
Lobbyists and advocates across the country are growing increasingly indignant over such shootings, and websites like Kid Shootings and Oh Shoot have now sprung up to track such incidents.
The shooting that has focused major attention on young kids with guns, as well as the gun industry’s growing focus on young children as the next generation of customers, was Tuesday’s fatal shooting in Cumberland County, Ky.
At about 1 p.m. the boy used a rifle that was given to him as a gift to shoot his sister in a moment when his mother stepped outside.
“The weapon is a single shot .22 caliber rifle,” Cumberland County police spokesman Billy Gregory told ABCNews.com. “One of the parents was at home at the time of the shooting. She had stepped outside the residence. She was cleaning and stepped outside to empty a mop bucket, and heard the shot and ran back inside.”
Gregory said that the case is currently a death investigation, and detectives are waiting for findings from the coroner.
Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told The Associated Press that the rifle was kept in a corner and the family didn’t realize a bullet was left inside it.
“It’s a Crickett,” White said. “It’s a little rifle for a kid. … The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun.”
The Cricket model was called “My First Rifle” and is manufactured by Keystone Sporting Arms.
The website for the brand, which uses the slogan “Quality firearms for America’s youth,” says that “the goal of KSA is to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve.”
Though KSA’s website for Crickett rifles does not specify the age range for use of its products, the site does have a“Kid’s Corner” which shows images of children, who appear to be from 5-12, holding rifles. The rifles come in a range of colors, from brown to hot pink to orange.
The company produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles for kids in 2008.
When contacted by ABCNews.com, a representative for Keystone Sporting Arms, located in Milton, Pa., said that the company is not answering questions.
The shooting in Kentucky on Tuesday and the one in Washington on Wednesday were the latest in a series of shootings in the last month involving young children.
In early April, Brandon Holt, 4, was shot by his 6-year-old friend in New Jersey while the two were playing a game of “pretend shooting,” also with a .22 caliber rifle. The following day, a 4-year-old boy in Lebanon, Tenn., fired a gun that killed his mother.
Josh Sugarmann, executive director and founder of the Violence Policy Center, a lobbying group working to tighten the regulation of firearms, told ABCNews.com that as the traditional market of white male gun owners is aging, the industry is looking towards a new market.
“There is a wide range of gun manufacturing targeted at youth,” he said. “The gun industry and gun ownership is declining, it has been for decades, and like tobacco, the industry needs new customers … The most vulnerable years to entice children as future gun customers is during their youth.”
Four Shootings By Children in Past Month
Sugarmann said that the gun industry’s marketing to youth has been going on for years, and has been ramped up over past 15 years or so. He points to a summer 2007 editorial in Shooting Sports Retailer magazine in which columnist Bruce Bear discusses how to market to a newer, younger customer.
“It’s absolutely critical for us to pass a love of shooting and hunting on to the next generation,” Bear wrote. “Due to heavy public sensitivity to the irresponsible promotion of firearms to youth, every promotion should foster both respect for and safety with firearms.”
According to the Violence Policy Center, from 1977 to 2010, the percentage of American households that reported having any guns in the home dropped more than 40 percent. The cause, the group believes, is the aging of the current gun owning population and a lack of interest in guns by youth.
Sugarmann said that the ongoing marketing effort towards youth is no shameful secret, and that the focus is industry wide. The solution as he sees it is legislation to keep guns out of the hands of the youth.
“We believe possession laws should mirror laws for purchase 18 for long guns, 21 for hand guns,” he said. “The idea of putting a gun into a child’s hand should be viewed as a crime.”
Peace & Love….
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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May 2nd, 2013 at 10:35 am
Wow, wt HELL kind of insane parents are they?
Is it a Kentucky thing bc that man commenting didn’t even mention the obvious, a 2 & 5 year old left on a room with rifle?
…negligence is one word that comes to mind but there are a few others and yes, on this one, I’m feeling judgmental!
Isn’t it interesting that ym and yw have something special going on between them here (and I always love to see the posts of longing for just each other) & that kind of specialness is very unique – it’s so enticing, that instead of inspiring peeps to find that for themselves, they actually want IN on your perfect as-is action, lol…
This phenomena is so interesting to me, I’ve had it happen in life, standing in public with a man I’m obviously very much with and looking very intent and content with each other, when another woman pops up and starts flirting to see if she can entice said man to do what, do the same to her…give her that special intense look/luvin’? hahaha…
If he’s that easy to distract, why the fug would you (or either of us) want him, nothing specialness there…
Just observing…no judging…I find it funny now that I’ve witnessed it personally for yeeeeaarrrsss (what can I tell you, I only have dated lookers, so this kind of stuff happens with regularity, I don’t care, not a jealous type ; )
Luv, Zen Lill
PS taking pics are on the calendar for this weekend…
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:06 am
The NRA said the 2 year old should have had her own gun.
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:56 am
What kind of father gives his 5 year old a .22 as a gift?! Hone that needs a background check. Hopefully lesson learned, somewhere.
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:58 am
Kentuckey needs to be fenced in and made into one big Mental Hospital.
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:58 am
No sane person would hand a 5 year old a box of matches but a rifle?????????????? What can I say–the zeal of gun nut knows no bounds.
May 2nd, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Ym,
I loved being with you today. We never did get out into the sunshine. I am smiling as I think of you and our time together. As always the hours go by so quickly with you in my arms. Until the next time…I love you.