Boy shoots his brother

[Darthwing Teorist]

A sad story from Montreal. So far, the police keeps a lot of information secret because of the investigation, but it is likely that the gun was legit. The brothers seemed like good kids too:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/mobile/n ... story.html

[gzregorz]

Sad and all too common. Recently a police officer left his gun in the arm rest and his kids in the car. His 3 year old son (who reportedly loves guns) got out his car seat, took out the gun and shot his 5 year old sister. She later died. On top of that the officer teaches gun safety.

[JonathanArthur]

A twelve year old child is being held without bail; incredible.

[GrahamB]

Somehow the answer to this will be "more guns". Sigh.

[Darthwing Teorist]

About the bail, he will be allowed to be bailed out after a week. Apparently the police judge the case serious enough to press these charges. I also heard today on the radio that the kids' father threatened them with a gun, so that can explain part of the behaviour.

Sad and all too common. Recently a police officer left his gun in the arm rest and his kids in the car. His 3 year old son (who reportedly loves guns) got out his car seat, took out the gun and shot his 5 year old sister. She later died. On top of that the officer teaches gun safety.

This is something I was thinking about yesterday and this is where the NRA is wrong: you can have, know and practice all the safety rules in the world, the fact remains that accidents due to guns are very serious. It does not take much to maim or kill somebody, even by seasoned practitioners, there are lots of these cases (unfortunately I know of one). This is to be expected: everyone is human and we have our moments of fatigue, inattention and involuntary carelessness. Not to talk about the fact that the more guns are spread in the population, the more will find their way in people who know or care less about the safety rules, the same way that you have people driving who don't care about following the rules of the road.

I like guns and I think that someone who hunts or likes to target practice is entitled to their hobby but the fact remains that the more these weapons are spread around, the more likely are the chances of accidents and other tragedies. It's just statistics. This is not even talking about what happens when people are armed and lose their mind while arguing, like it happened recently in Texas.

[Steve James]

It's just statistics.

I've seen more accidents and potential accidents than times when a child could be saved (with a firearm). That's the personal, non-ideological, pov on which I evaluate the chances and the needs.

If my kids were still in home, I wouldn't depend on the gun to make them safe. (The guys with the bigger guns are all more equal than I am anyway). Everybody says "the kids should be trained." Well, yeah, but taking them out of unsafe environments also works. It's why people want to move to "good" neighborhoods. But, if my kids had to be left alone (???), then having a place where they can safely retreat is another replacement to whipping out the pistol. And, as we know, even "trained" people mess up, not because of the weapon, just because they are "people."

I dunno. I have a 16 year-old grandson. His father (a Marine) has taken him to the range since he was 12. He's familiar with a few types of weapons. Now, if I left a loaded .45 on my desk while he was around, I'd say that I was raising the chances of something bad happening. Sure, it lowers the chance that someone could break in and cause harm, somewhat, if there was a likelihood of that happening at all. Anyway, end result is that I'd never leave a loaded weapon in an easily accessible location while he was around.

[Steve James]

Teen's confession: Horror film inspired murder of mom, sister
By Scott Gordon, NBCDFW.com

A 17-year-old wrote in a confession released Thursday that the horror movie remake of "Halloween" gave him the idea to kill his mother and sister.

Jake Evans is on trial for the Oct. 3 slayings of his 15-year-old sister, Mallory, and mother Jami in their upscale Aledo home. The confession was introduced as evidence.

In a four-page written confession to police hours after his arrest, Evans said he had watched the remake of "Halloween" three times earlier that week.

The 2007 Rob Zombie film is about a 10-year-old boy who murders several people and kills a number of others 15 years later.

While watching it, I was amazed at how at ease the boy was during the murders and how little remorse he had," Evans wrote. "Afterward, I was thinking to myself it would be the same for me when I kill someone."
Later, as his mother and sister watched the presidential debate that night, he said he "just sat in the living room thinking about how I was going to kill my family."

He wrote that he got a knife.

"I went back upstairs and kept pacing back and forth imagining killing Mallory," he said. "Thoughts of causing her pain kept entering my mind and were really bothering me. But then I'd think about the times she hurt my feelings."

He later knocked on her bedroom door and asked her to watch the comedy movie "Water Boy."
Then he changed his plans.

"After a while, I thought to myself that if I were to kill my mom and Mallory, I wouldn't want them to feel anything, so I decided to kill them both with the .22 revolver I stole from my Grandpa," he wrote.

He said he thought about it some more.

"I then spent probably over an hour walking nervously around the house thinking how life will never be the same and how I would never see them again," he wrote.

He said he knocked on sister's door again and told her their mother needed her.
"She came out and out of the corner of her eye she saw me pointing the gun at her," he said. "She thought I was joking and told me that I was freaking her out. I shot her in the back and then the head."

He then went to the study and shot his mother three times.
"In shock, I ran to my room and was screaming at the top of my lungs that I am really messed up and that I killed my mom and sister," he wrote.

"As I emptied the shells on my bed, I heard noizes (sic) and realized that Mallory was still alive," he said. "While I loaded the gun back up, I was shouting that I was sorry and then ran as fast as I could to kill her. I made sure my mom was dead and shot her again in the head."

He said he placed the gun on the counter and called 911.

Sheriff's deputies found the bodies of his mother and sister and arrested him.

In the last lines of his confession, he wrote: "I know now though that I'm done with killing. It's the most dreadful and terrifying thing I will ever experience. And what happened last night will haunt me forever."

[Darthwing Teorist]

That is really messed up. He actually thought about the consequences and he still proceeded. He did this to his family, not to some strangers. In some way, this may prove his own punishment: living the rest of his life missing his mother and sister. Do you have the link to the article? It is interesting, from a psychological point of view so I want to post it to a few other places.

PS: A confession - I also had thoughts about what it feels to kill someone, especially when I was young (maybe triggered by stories or movies) but I always put the thoughts aside. OTOH back in Romania the military service was mandatory so reading about war I was trying to imagine what it feels like. But sometimes the thoughts were really about "what would feel to stab someone? Is that like cutting a steak?" I don't know about others, but these are probably normal in the process of discovering the world. This is why moral guidance is necessary: maybe the fact that society tends to throw away religion is something that lets people have less inhibitions (though there were always psychopaths). Of course, now if such a thought flashes through my mind it either freaks me out or I let it go without paying it much attention. It seems like the violent media in this case was a trigger for this boy and he did not avoid that course of action. It would be interesting to know how was he raised, how was his moral upbringing. Maybe it wasn't strong enough, maybe his personality did not have enough empathy (though according to him, he did have some).

[Steve James]

HI, choose a source:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Horror+f ... e&ie=UTF-8

[Darthwing Teorist]

HI, choose a source:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Horror+f ... e&ie=UTF-8

Thank you!

[Steve James]

It's a sad story. I don't know if I buy the "movie made me do it" confession. I think the causes of the kid's violent thoughts might be explainable. But, Michael Myers did his mayhem with a big knife, and there are plenty instances of people killing members of their families in religion, folklore, literature and the news with all sort of weapons.

[Darthwing Teorist]

The weapon does not matter to me. The value of that article lies in the confession: knowing the thought process and motivation of the killer is interesting, to see if there is anything that we can do to prevent more of these cases (beside preparing for violence, it would be better to address the problem to its source).

[Steve James]

I don't know if we can address the causes as easily as we can the effects. I don't think movies (media) or guns are the causes. Should we address the problem of abuse within families or in schools or in the workplace or among friends? Absolutely. I am only arguing that arming those involved is not a solution. Ok, there might also be ways to cut down on street and drug crime.

[Darthwing Teorist]

I agree.

[gzregorz]

The sad thing is this is so common that I can't even find that other one that I talked about on Google. There are just so many.