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THE ACCIDENTAL FATAL shooting of a US woman by her own two-year-old son at a Walmart store has left her family devastated and again raised questions about gun safety in America.
Veronica Rutledge was out shopping with her son and three nieces on Tuesday in Hayden, Idaho when the child unzipped her handbag — which was specially designed to carry a concealed weapon — and the gun went off.
The 29-year-old nuclear research scientist, who held a permit to carry a concealed weapon, got the bag last week as a Christmas gift from her husband Colt Rutledge, with whom she shared a passion for guns.
“An inquisitive two-year-old boy reached into the purse, unzipped the compartment, found the gun and shot his mother in the head,” her father-in-law Terry Rutledge told the Washington Post newspaper.
It’s a terrible, terrible incident.
He added that his son, the victim’s husband, now is grappling with how to break the news to the youngster, the couple’s only child.
“He has a two-year-old boy right now who doesn’t know where his mom is and he’ll have to explain why his mom isn’t coming home,” he said.
And then, later on his life, as he questions it more, he’ll again have to explain what happened, so we’ll have to relive this several times over.
Veronica Rutledge was a scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal research facility in the east of the state, and co-authored a number of published papers.
She and her husband — the couple married in 2009 — shared a keen interest in guns, spending time at shooting ranges and going out hunting.
’Logical approach’ to gun safety
Around 30,000 deaths a year in the United States involve firearms. The majority are suicides; many others are murders. But some involve children laying their hands on loaded weapons.
In 2011 alone, 140 children and teenagers died as a result of an unintentional shooting, more often than not inside a home, according to a study from the Brady Centre to Prevent Gun Violence.
“Every day as parents, we make rational choices regarding our family’s safety — we buckle our children’s seatbelts, make them wear bicycle helmets, and teach them to look both ways before crossing the street,” it said today.
But when it comes to gun safety, many parents do not take the same logical approach.
Walmart closed its Hayden location — normally open 24 hours a day — after Tuesday’s shooting, which occurred in the electronics department. It reopened this morning.
Coincidentally, the retail chain is the biggest gun retailer in the United States, which has seen an uptick in gun-buying in recent years among women looking for greater personal protection.
Fifteen per cent of American women own a gun, according to a Gallup poll analysis.
Crime versus safety
Largely rural Idaho has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the United States, as well as a rate of violent crime that is below the national average.
Over the years, a growing number of US states have adopted laws allowing their residents to obtain concealed carry permits.
In December 2011, the US Government Accountability Office estimated there were about eight million concealed handgun permits, but by June 2014, the number had grown to well over 11.1 million.
Florida has issued the most concealed carry permits — 1.28 million. The state with the highest percentage of residents with such permits is South Dakota at 12%.
In August, a nine-year-old girl learning to fire an Uzi submachine gun accidentally killed her instructor at the Last Stop Gun Range in the southwestern state of Arizona.
She was unable to control the weapon’s recoil as she fired it, and an errant bullet struck her 39-year-old instructor in the head, killing him, a police report said.
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How does a family carer self isolate if their charge hasn’t been exposed? Taking to bedroom for 2 weeks and leaving a special needs adult or child to fend for themselves isn’t feasible. The alternative is to knowingly expose them. Also, who will step in to care for that individual if their sole carer actually becomes bed ridden at home? Are there any plans in place to offer things like emergency respite? Since family carers are low on the list of priorities at the best of time, I don’t suppose it’s even occurred to those in power to think of them now.
@Carol Oates: Politicians in Ireland are reactive, ‘thinking’ or planning for any public service outside of what is right in front of them has never happened, in 100 years. Maybe the Luas, that’s it tho. Look out for yourself, and steal anything needed to do so Carol.
@thesaltyurchin: Good point – so if an infected person asks you for help, because the government isn’t interested in helping them, your answer is to grab whatever you need from others? It would be more honest to support any political parties who can organise help for people who do need it.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Yes. Individuals will always help where they can (me and no doubt yourself included), but the nature of our car boot sale society is to look out for yourself and get zero public services (from a century of taxes). Absolutely agree that supporting political parties who can organise help is the way to go but like I said we have 100 years of promises, but no proof really.
On last night’s ‘Late Late Show’ , a virology expert told us we have to wash our hands whilst singing ‘Happy Birthday’. But only the other night, the same professor was on ‘Prime Time’ advising us to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” .
I’m not surprised so many are in fear of the Coronavirus with the amount of conflicting info out there
@Liz O’Neill: I heard this and laughed initially – but then realised that you are supposed to wash your hands for 20 seconds and this is about the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – so it is actually a good way to teach small children how to wash their hand adequately – neat idea in the end, until you have a house full of kinds singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, out of time and out of time but not out of mind.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: I totally agree I even practice it myself as I work into all the nooks and crannys (and if one is wearing jewellery there are plenty of those). I just found it amusing that he, literally, ‘changed his tune’. It’s good to have a giggle in the face of adversity.
i read in the new york post that it was a lab leak. guess whick city in china has the only bio lab .
@Derek Gannon: The spin and lies continue…
@Derek Gannon: you’re about 10 days behind on the conspiracy theories. Will expect you’ll discover the Japanese doctors advice to wash the virus into your stomach tomorrow…….
@Derek Gannon: “In our view, there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory-engineered CoV. It is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 is a recombinant CoV generated in nature between a bat CoV and another coronavirus in an intermediate animal host. ”
References:
Liu, S.L., Saif, L.J., Weiss, S.R. and Su, L., 2020. No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Emerging Microbes & Infections, 9(1), pp.505-507.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak
Please don’t listen to people like Peter
Flu is a pandemic every year it infects millions in USA.
The USA has a population of 327,000,000 the flu virus every year infects from 5-20% meaning 16,000,000 to 65,000,000 people in USA are infected of that number between 8000 to 20,000 deaths are attributed to flu related factors.
This is a mortality rare of ~0.03%.
SARS-COVID19 has infected only 78,000 in China and ~2800 have died already with 8000 in serious to critical condition. Thats a mortality rate of ~ 3.5%, its around 2.6% in Italy and higher in Iran.
If CV19 infected the 20% range of people in the USA that flu can the death rate would be 2,275,000 not 20,000 like flu (and we have some vaccines for flu types)
@Supes Kz: fair enough but where are the survivors? Why are none interviewed? Tell us what it’s like.
@mr magoo: At time of writing there are approx 42,000 discharged or cured or clear and 3,000 dead. There are a further 41,000 still ill of which 7,500 are serious or critical…
source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
And for people who are curious to know more here is what the virus does and how and why it kills https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what-coronavirus-does-to-the-body/
All I know is that cancelling the match, ruining the 6N, and doing nothing about the flights is absolutely ridiculous. So instead of those same Italians in the Aviva on Saturday, they are spread all over town. Harris and his day in the sun. Now 6 countries plans are in smoke.
3 good channels for info.
1 Dr John Campbell
2 MedCram
3 Doctor Mike Hansen. Quite technical but very informative.
@saoirse janneau: How does it makes sense for italians not to go to a rugby stadium and instead due to the cancelled match go to a pub? I dont care if they flew from Amsterdam or Milan, they show up at dublin airport with Italian passports
Would an 83 year old on immunotherapy be advised not to travel on flight to USA
So as far as I can make out from the comments on The Journal, the Chinese government released a “bionuke” to cull the population.
And then locked down entire cities because it was making people sick.
Triffic…
@..: And the same people reciting such rubbish know perfectly well that China’s economy had improved to the point of relaxing, then dropping their 1970s one-child policy. The Chinese want citizens to have more children. It just makes a better pub yarn to joke about people who were doing their best to get past old-school restrictions.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: it would make perfect economic sense for an ageing population to release a virus that didn’t effect children, had minimal effect on healthy adults of working age and effectively culled the disabled or people of pension age. makes a great conspiracy theory!
The infection rate is 90% and the death rate is 89%. Every doctor and scientist on earth is in on the lie and none of them are telling the truth.
But Susan on Facebook knows the truth coz her brother used to work in a hospital and has the walking dead box set.
Also , I’ve heard the bears can smell the menstruation.
The Chinese are supposed to have a bio weapons lab a few kilometres outside Wuhan. Now is that just a coincidence?
The virus is reported to some components of HIV in it as well.
@Paul Atreides: Oh dear, you may have caught the ID 10T variant. Be careful out there.
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