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IT HAS BEEN a year of conflict, protests and political uncertainty and photographers across the world have been embedded in the action to capture these moments.
They brought us scenes of war as it raged on in Syria, showed us firefighters battling with deadly wildfires in California, forced us to confront the reality of children starving in Yemen and captured tension on the faces of political leaders in Britain as they stumbled through Brexit negotiations.
Here are just some of those images:
Source: Cris Faga/PA" title="">
Source: Amy Beth Bennett/PA" title="">
Source: Mahmoud Issa" title="">
Source: KIrsty O'Connor" title="">
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Source: Anatolii Stepanov" title="">
Source: Kevin Warn" title="">
Source: Maximiliano Ramos" title="">
Source: Muhmmad Al-Najjar" title="">
Source: Juan Carlos Hernandez" title="">
Source: Theodore Parisienne" title="">
Source: Saqib Majeed" title="">
Source: PA Archive/PA Images" title="">
Source: Eyad Jadallah" title="">
Source: Victora Jones" title="">
Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images" title="">
Source: Yui Mok" title="">
Source: Mike Stocker" title="">
Source: Ani Djaferian" title="">
Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images" title="">
Source: Esteban Felix" title="">
Source: Hector Amezcua" title="">
Source: Mahmoud Issa" title="">
Source: Hector Amezcua" title="">
Source: Dominic Lipinski" title="">
Source: Jack Kurtz" title="">
Source: Andrew Medichini" title="">
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Source: Evan Vucci" title="">
Source: Vito Di Stefano" title="">
Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images" title="">
Source: Korea Summit Press/Pool" title="">
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Sad news but what was she doing with a gun going shopping. .
It’s America!
In America, you are likely to get mugged, raped, beaten, kidnapped, murdered. You can’y blame people for wanting to protect themselves in that psycho filled country.
Jimminy, that’s the job of the police and not the individual citizen. You’re also likely to have that happen to you here in Europe but thankfully we don’t allow people to walk around with loaded handguns in their purses.
Police do their job, and the people hate them for it.
If the muggers, rapists and all th psychos you refer to were all subject to strict gun laws, all would be that bit safer. Arming psychos and idiots is hardly a good plan.
A gun that clearly had a round in the chamber and the safety off. Incredibly stupid. It could have discharged from a drop of even jostle of the bag and killed God knows who; maybe even her own son.
Dario, you should elaborate rather than shouting “you’re wrong”.
He is right though that Peter is incorrect. Modern cartridges are made using a combination of propellants and stabilisers which are chemically engineered to provide safe and reliable detonation only when desired. This, combined with the fact that modern firearms are designed to take an incredible beating before accidentally discharging and triggers requiring a decent pull strength, means that it’s incredibly unlikely that a firearm would accidentally discharge on its own in someone’s handbag.
WTF!
And yet a 2 year old managed it! I think you may be placing too much trust in those mechanisms.
That kid must have some strong little grip on him. Its hard to find a carry gun with less than 4lb. Most are 4-6lbs.
How sad will it be when explaining where his mother is after he gets a bit older?
Its mad, just soo mad and sad.
Who said it was a modern gun? Might have been a family heirloom, handed down from her grandparents.
Fact is it went off. It could have been worse, like killing the child or another innocent passersby.
Darwin award contender me thinks… hey Cletus quit your crying and get mummy’s purse out of her bag, she can’t be expected to reach it behind her mobility scooter! BANG!!!
Maybe it was an old model weapon.just sayin.a baby shot it…..sad
@ Billy Bob. No. The police act like criminals and people with the ability to think hate them for it.
The NRA will tell you that if the lady was carrying a gun she could have shot back first… ‘cos guns don’t kill people people kill people. Now argue with that sound logic.. fcukers!
So a 2 year old can give a trigger a decent pull
RIP. poor girl. What a terrible burden for the little boy to bear, even though he probably thought it was only a toy.
https://www.facebook.com/veronica.j.rutledge?fref=ts
The sooner America gets the finger out and introduces new gun laws the better. RIP
The bigger question is why was the weapon cocked and the safety not on .
Because in many states in the US, it’s perfectly legal to acquire a licence without prior training. In Europe it can take months or years of supervision and training before you can legally purchase your own firearm.
@tommy wheelan that’s a good point, but it’s defiantly not the bigger question
@ Gavin Corrigan
Gun laws are equally lax in Switzerland but in that country there is extremely low levels of gun crime
Big Willy, the gun laws in Switzerland are nowhere near as lax as some US states. The Swiss ban automatic firearms (a notable exception being service rifles of reserve soldiers), certain semi-auto conversions of automatic firearms, armour piercing rounds and hollow-point rounds. You also need to pass a background check.
@ Jason Culligan
Switzerland murder rate: 0.7 per 100,000 people – That’s less than the UK, where there is strict gun laws.
Meanwhile in Russia, which has very strict gun laws, a total ban on handguns for civilians and strict licensing for shotguns and rifles and their murder rate is 10.2 per 100,000 people
Murder rate overall or gun murder?
Murder rate overall
Interesting. Always good to know context when someone is using statistics to try to make a point.
About that…. If that’s not specifically gun murder rates then what exactly is your point?
Sadly, your misspelling of a word – defiantly – (meaning ” with defiance”) renders your comment
incomprehensible. I trust you meant DEFINITELY.
You can be damn sure any guns that are handed up to the US Government in amnesties by law abiding citizens will end up in the hands of head hacking terrorists in the middle east.
No Frank that’s not what will happen.
john bissett_ You could be right
Grenade and TOW anti tank missile launchers would be far more useful to these terrorists than any assault rifle or hand gun. Of course all this at the expense of the US tax payer.
Ya just just can’t fix stupid. That’s the American difference. U.S. Thinks everyone is equal which is fine but one thing is for sure not everyone is equally intelligent and Americans have more than their large share of dummies.
Frank, even the text in your link contradicts your point.
Judging by his comments, Frank would be perfectly at home with all the conspiracy theorists in the states.
Fact is, stricter gun laws need to be introduced, sad truth is, the NRA and other lobby groups will do their utmost to block any decent law from being introduced.
Gun laws only give a corrupt government more powers to suppress the masses with a fascist police state.
Frog marching hundreds and thousands of gullible unarmed Americans to FEMA camps without resistance in the near future. If only the Jews foresaw all this in the 1930′s they wouldn’t have surrendered their weapons to the NAZIS before being rounded up and put in box cars.
America needs to wake up to the Devils tricks that are being used by the main stream media to rob its citizens of the 2nd amendment.
Oh, there we have it, America’s government is controlled by the devil, and that’s a very good reason to have such lax gun laws, so that every idiot can go,and buy a gun and then start running amok with it.
Yeah, right.
Larissa Nikolaus_ IF the US Government was controlled by God it would not be feathering the nest of the terrorist state of Israel and arming head hacking militants in Syria.
So lets get this straight Frank, the Devil’s strategy (in the shape of the US government) is to allow its citizens to arm themselves to the teeth, which will then give them the perfect excuse to take all the guns back off them, before shipping them all off to fema camps??
Oh if course, I forgot that you have God on your side, and Israel is a terrorist state, whereas Hamas are the innocent victims? And then US is arming ISIS, probably with the guns they would take away from their citizens?
Frank, sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no God and no Devil, and while I do not condone all the actions of the IDF, Israel itself is in no way a terror state.
True That.
How can a 2 year get near a gun unbelieveable
Checklist for leaving the house:
Wallet – Check
Keys – Check
Phone – Check
Loaded Gun – Check
The woman paid a high price for having a concealed loaded gun (safety on or off??) Lucky the boy wasn’t killed or another child / innocent bystander.
Not all guns have safety’s, that a bit of a movie trope…
All guns have safety. Unless we are talking about a musket.
That’s not entirely true. A lot of older firearms which were originally smoothbores and later converted to cartridge-firing weapons lack safety mechanisms. More than likely in this case it was either a modern semi-automatic pistol or a revolver with the safety disengaged.
@ Powerful.
No they dont. A lot of older revolvers in particular dont have any safety.
A lot of double action pistols nowadays that are considered “Drop safe” dont have a safety lever. They just require a heavier trigger pull.
Even still, it’s surprising how many people think a firearm is safe once the magazine has been removed and don’t realise that there could still be a cartridge in the chamber.
What about Revolvers ? No Safety Catch !
Dario that’s why u have safety drills . You never take a loaded weapon into a building . You carry out the correct unloading drill in a safe area . You get a second person to check the chamber is clear before you fire of the action . It’s all about safety .
If she had had another gun in her pocket she could have gotten the kid before he shot her. Gun possession solves everything, doesn’t it?
Away with safety catches, away with gun control, let’s just have a good old shoot out and let the best man/woman win.
Perhaps the members of the NRA could lead by example and show us how it could eliminate all problems.
@Jason
Spot on – a couple of years ago a certain gangland figure in Limerick inadvertently killed himself when he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger whilst bragging to his friends about what he was going to do to someone. Apparently he forgot that there was still a round in the chamber even though the clip had been emptied. Darwin Award winner for sure…
Not true
Re: ‘All guns have safetys’
The usa needs a radical overhaul of its gun laws.
Earlier this year, a grandmother in Phoenix accidentally shot dead her grandson. He was staying the weekend with her.
Both were asleep in separate bedrooms, when suddenly the grandson (7) who was having a nightmare burst into her room. She immediately grabbed her gun and fired a volley of shots into the dark and killed him stone dead
Prior to him visiting she had been burgled several times and she bought a shot gun to protect herself
God bless America! Fckn idiots
Murica
Pew pew
Two-year-old accidentally shot his mother dead at Wal-Mart………
Well he hardly shot his mother on purpose………….
The same chain store (Wal-Mart) sells guns, yet cannot sell Kinder eggs for safety reasons
Alan, the way you say it you’d swear the US specifically banned Kinder Eggs. The reality is Kinder Eggs are one of many products blocked by a law which bans any foreign objects from being included in confectionery due to a number of choking incidences in the early 1900′s.
It’s still amazing nonetheless.
Was is name Stewie?…and his mother Lois?
At least it wasn’t the child.
Your a few points short of the I.Q a child lost its mother the child grows up knowing it killed his mother so both lives are lost not counting the rest of family, so your at least it wasn’t a child is redundant.
So on your estimation they should eliminate the child. Fool.
See shows the clown you are that’s not what I said.
Tragic story but not surprising!!!
Land of the free, home of the crazies….
Casually carrying a gun in your purse while shopping with your baby!
The right to bear arms is crazy. (There aren’t enough bears in the world for every American to own bear arms)
Meh. Idiot carrys a loaded gun in her purse without the safety on.Gets shot with her own firearm.One less idiot in the world.At least the kid will have learned a lesson about doing the same.Its the price you must be willing to risk paying if you treat guns with that little respect.
@ Paddy Hannigan
My neighbour carries a knife everytime he goes out at night.
One night the knife and his wallet was grabbed from his pocket. There was no money in the wallet, so the robber threw it on the ground and stabbed him in the stomach
Do you blame my neighbour for carrying a knife? Was it his fault he was stabbed?
Hardly the same thing now is it ? Someone else deliberatly stabbed your neighbor.If he had an open blade stuck in his waist band cut off his own dick and bled to death I would say the same thing. I have no problems with guns.I been in areas of the world where they are absolutly necessary such as the bush in Namibia or on the ice in Sweeden.I do have a problem with idiots completly disregarding safety procedures.Im glad this woman didn’t take out some innocent but beyond that , sorry , but I have no sympathy for her.Her actions put the lives of children and others in danger.If the kid had accidently shot one of his friends would you be so quick to defend her ?
Although tragic, I would have to say yes. He was armed, his assailant wasn’t. He armed his unarmed assailant. If he left the knife at home he would still be here with his family, it did not protect him very sadly.
Yes
Yes absolutely. What the feck was he doing carrying a knife? If he hadn’t had it, he wouldn’t have been stabbed. Natural selection at work, I’d say.
Yes.
If you go around carrying a knife, you’re asking for trouble.
What a tool.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say natural selection at work, but part of the blame definitely lies with your neighbour for carrying the knife in the first place. It still doesn’t excuse the other guy from stabbing him.
How is that child ever going to get through life now , ? Very stupid woman !
Live by the gun, die bye the gun. Hard to believe these are real people.
In 2013 there were 60 gun deaths in the UK. As the US has just over five times the population of the UK, their gun deaths should be somewhere between 300 and 350. The actual total was in excess of 12 000.
How is this defensible?
im pretty sure a lot of the 12000 are gangbangers , home invaders and other assorted criminals, call it pest control. How many “people” are walking around Ireland with 80 plus convictions that will likely stab or beat someone to death in the future, how is this defensible?
So sad! God help that poor little boy having to live with this and his life has pretty much only just begun he is only 2 after all :(
I for one would like to see all citizens wearing a bullet proof vest going shopping. Statistics show 1/8 people killed last year, died when out shopping! Statistics also show that 5/9 are made up on the spot.
It depends on where you are doing your shopping.
I would certainly wear plenty of protection shopping in Tallaght!
As long as they’re replaced at least once every 5 years. Kevlar jackets have an expiry date.
And that little fellow is going to have to carry the consequences of that awful tragedy until he takes his last breath!!!!
I read this article elsewhere and it said that after reviewing eye witness statements and CCTV footage, the local sheriff was satisfied that it was an accidental shooting. Really as if a 2 year old would intentionally do this.
Well you’d want to make sure no on deliberately gave the child the gun or shoot her then hand the gun to the child. Gotta cover all the bases
Before I finished reading the title I knew it must be the USA.
When the child grows up he can get a job in law enforcement.
A similar accident happened in Galway in the seventies or early eighties ….. A complete and utter tragedy !
This is so very upsetting to me. First of all, why is it that a mother shopping with her baby feels so uncomfortable that she needs to carry a loaded gun to walmart?? It’s Hayden, ID.. Not south central!! Next.. Why was the gun in reach?? Next.. Why wasn’t the safety on??? Next.. What the hell were you doing when your toddler reached in your purse.. Played with a loaded gun long enough to wrap his little fingers around the trigger, point and shoot?? Especially knowing that there was a lethal weapon accessible? What are u thinking? Was the purse right next to the baby?? Lastly, more of a comment. I feel terrible for this itty bitty child that lost his mother. Definitely not his fault that his mother was foolish and negligent, but will be without a mother forever because of the negligence. I hope to God that he is not ever felt to be blamed for this tragic accident. May his mommy rest in peace.
At least the child or an innocent bystander wasn’t hurt. It was this woman’s own utter stupidity that put her and everybody else at risk.
You can talk about overhauling laws but the government didn’t force her to walk around Walmart with a loaded, un-safetied, cocked gun in her purse.
Darwin awards?
Damn straight. No sympathy for gun nuts who get shot with their own guns. Check out Jim jeffries, on gun control funny but so so true
She killed herself through utter stupidity. It’s a shame her son was involved.
Waiting for the NRA to release a statement now saying the only way to prevent this sort of tragedy in the future is more guns.
Incomprehensible!
What would any woman want to take a concealed weapon with her to the grocery store? Maybe the child saw her put the weapon in her bag and got curious. The World is getting madder!!
guns don’t kill people babies do , #thuglife
stay classy America
There will be more comments here than on the 8 murders in Canada this evening. RIP to this woman but why had she a gun loaded, no safety and in her purse when shopping. Nothing wrong with owning and having guns on your own property and having proper control there but it’s add when you need one to go shopping.
There’ll be more comments on “your favourite movie of 2014″ than the killings in Canada. That’s just the way it goes. Some things grab different people’s attention.
Where there are guns carried there will be tragic accidents like the case in the headlines. To many people the right to bear arms seems a stupid law. In fact the founding fathers of the USA knew what they were doing when this amendment was put into the constitution there. They forseen a time when people, citizens, would need to be able to protect themselves from their own government. Corporate America want to see the guns removed from people, and a few state authorities have done all they can to water down the right to bear arms as much as the can and make it difficult for people to own or carry guns. It will be a sad day for all if they ever succeed.
@Dave .Yea, all the big corporations like weapons manufacturers want to ban guns. Knock the skunk on the head for a few days & stay away from conspiracy websites while you’re at it.
Simply put America loves its guns more than its children.
@Dave. Totally agree. I need to arm up to fend off Apple and Ford. Them evil corporations ain’t coming near my land!
And there was me thinking America was supposed to be a democracy !!!!!
Ten Major, you would be better of informing yourself of what is happening regarding the owning and carrying of guns there before you start going down the “conspiracy” route. It is not simple at all.
Yeah right, You definitely need a stock of semi-automatic rifles, hand guns and what nots at home, to protect yourself form these evil corporations, and banning guns would be such a bad idea. Dave, are you on drugs?
I can’t believe anyone in his right mind would write such utter bollocks.
Sadly I’m not shocked. I should be, but I’m not anymore.
Unfortunately I feel the same, neither surprised nor shocked by this
Exactly why have a gun to go shopping that child now has to grow up knowing he shot his mum, so sad.
The Wal-Mart closed after the shooting.
Surely in Murica the poor kid is liable for his crime! Seriously though ffs, poor baby!
Maybe she refused him some sweets at the inevitable stack of candies at the till and having been exposed on Murican TV homicides at two, going on three, would have been quite capable of taking out a gun and shooting bad mummy with it.
Here’s a poem just came up by accident in case you missed it the first time I posted it. Accidents will happen.
Children of a lesser war
We are children of a lesser war
A petty skirmish, nothing more,
The bluebirds won’t sing over
The white cliffs of Dover
For us,
There’ll be no fuss
Just a footnote in our history
No Vera Lynn, no mystery
No Nazis in the countryside
Or turning back the evil tide
Just tattered gaps in people’s lives
Grieving wives
No fly-by at the Cenotaph
Sing songs where people laugh
Through the Blitz,
Defying Fritz
We envy them that cause
Not like our wars
No equals in Afghanistan
No tussles man to man
No Luftwaffe in Iraq
No Bletchley Park
Just car bombs and smell
A cut price hell
No Winston, just windbags
We won’t see waving flags
Just body bags and sad parades
Until a sordid peace is made
Nothing solved
Nothing gained
Yawn.
2014 Darwin Award Winner.
Fox News report was the top link on Google
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/31/woman-accidentally-shot-and-killed-by-2-year-old-in-walmart/
According to them this lady, Veronica Rutland, was a nuclear research scientist, Which would suggest a certain level of intelligence and attention to detail. Maybe the child was fiddling with the gun and managed to get the safety catch off.
*Rutlege*
‘Murica
The American fatal love affair with the gun.
Guns are for killing people. That is their purpose. It follows that in carrying a gun the door is always open to the prospect of killing someone. In this case the killing was done by an infant who managed to get its hands on its mother’s gun, shooting her. Her death followed. Big surprise. No. It is no surprise.
I suppose I should be making noises about how tragic it is. But I will not. Instead I will rattle on about how stupid and irresponsible it is. That women, in carrying a gun, whether she thought about it or not, was making a statement that, ultimately, she was prepared to kill another human being. Unhappily for her, the person her gun killed was herself. I find it hard to have any sympathy. To leave a gun in a place where an infant can gain acces to it is negligence beyond belief. The only good point was that it was not another person who was killed.
America’s love affair with the gun is beyond madness. Frankly, my feeling is this: the sooner they all shoot each other the better, and let the saner Americans get on with living without fear of idiots who cannot control the custody of their lethal weapons.
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