Guns Don't Kill People, Except When They Do
Wisconsin- Where even a disturbed 10-year-old can be charged as an adult
(It’s all of 20 degrees outside and the Portland area had an ice storm overnight. Nothing is moving, and most of Puddletown looks like McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Not much is moving, and what is moving is doing so very slowly. Hey, this isn’t northern Minnesota. People here aren’t used to this sort of mess. So I have a snow/ice/play day. Yay, me!!! - Jack)
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My relationship with my parents while I was growing up was…well, sub-optimal would probably be the best way to describe it. My father and I spent the better part of 18 years at war with one another, sprinkled with the occasional uneasy and short-lived detente. However, at no time did I ever consider shooting either of my parents.
And if there were two things we had no lack of in our house, it was guns and ammunition. I knew how to use both, and I knew where they were stored in the house. But it never occurred to me to use them on anyone, not even my parents.
Fast forward 45 years or so, and the world has changed. Because not only did a 10-year-old boy shoot and kill his mother, the mainstream media barely got a sniff of the story.
(Yawn…another “kid-shoots-mother-because-she-didn’t-buy-him-a-VR-headset” story. Didn’t we run one last week?)
A 10-year-old Wisconsin boy has been charged as an adult after he told police he fatally shot his mother when she refused to buy him a virtual reality headset on Amazon, authorities said.
He also said he was angry because she woke him up a half-hour earlier than his usual time the day of the shooting in the family’s Milwaukee home on Nov. 21.
The day after his mother’s death, he logged on to her Amazon account to buy the headset online, according to the criminal complaint against him, which was obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The boy reportedly apologized for killing his mom, but officials said he appeared to show no real remorse.
He admitted that he shot his 44-year-old mother “in the face when she was approximately three feet away,” the complaint said, according to NBC News. He then woke up his sister to tell her what had happened….
His sister told authorities that her brother had “rage issues” all of his life and had “five different imaginary people that talk to him,” according to the criminal complaint.
You’re probably thinking what I was when I first read this story. If you have an emotionally unstable child, especially one with known violent tendencies and rage issues,
Why would you have firearms in the house?
If you must have firearms in the house, why would you have them where the emotionally unstable child could easily find them?
Wouldn’t it seem prudent to have any firearms secured in a safe place, preferably stored separately from ammunition?
Why was this child allowed access to a weapon and, even worse, the ammunition for it?
There has to be some adult accountability for leaving weaponry and ammunition in the household where a child could access it.
And what sort of care has this child received? Has there been any awareness of his penchant for violence? Was there any help forthcoming from the county or state mental health departments? Did anyone have any insight into the possibility of something like this happening?
When he was 4 years old he would spin the family’s puppy around in the air by its tail as it whined and howled in pain, the complaint stated.
A therapist recently gave the boy a “concerning diagnosis,” according to the complaint. The mother subsequently placed cameras inside the home to track his behavior. Two weeks before the mother’s death, “someone had unplugged these cameras,” the complaint said.
The boy “admitted to knowing that guns are dangerous and can kill people,” police said.
The day after the shooting when he saw his grandmother crying, the boy “stated without any empathy or compassion: ‘I’m really sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for killing my mom,’” according to the complaint.
After he apologized, “he then asked if his Amazon package arrived,” the complaint said.
Of course, this being Wisconsin, asking questions about the guns in the house would be almost an afterthought. The Badger State is controlled by a bright red legislature that has made gun control as popular as anthrax.
It’s never the guns.
Repeat after me: GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE!! PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!!
OK, but having the gun AND ammunition easily accessible to the boy didn’t help.
It doesn’t matter; it’s never the guns. And MORGUNZ!! can only make things better.
So what’s the solution, then? How about charging the 10-year-old boy with serious mental health issues as an adult? Yeah, that’s the perfect solution!!
The boy was charged in adult court last week with first-degree reckless homicide and is being held in the county's juvenile detention facility.
The boy first told police the shooting was an accident, but a day later, his relatives contacted police questioning his story and the child later admitted that he intentionally pointed a gun at his mother before shooting her, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by the Journal Sentinel.
OK, so the kid’s twirled a puppy by its tail. And he’s set the family’s furniture on fire. He’s only ten. But, what the Hell; let’s charge him as an adult. He’s old enough to know right from wrong, no? And if he isn’t, he should be, so let’s make an example of him.
If convicted of the murder charge, the boy could face up to 60 years in prison.
I’m not going to attempt to justify murder, but if the boy is legitimately suffering from significant emotional/mental health issues, how will charging- and ultimately sentencing- him as an adult serve justice?
(Or, if he’s acquitted, will he become the next Kyle Rittenhouse?)
How long will it be before the State of Wisconsin is charging eight-year-olds as adults? Or six-year-olds? Where does this end? Does it end?
The Journal Sentinel is not identifying the boy or his mother at this time because of his age and the circumstances of the case. The child's family declined to speak with a Journal Sentinel reporter on Wednesday and one of his attorneys, Angela Cunningham, said she was still gathering information about the case.
"This is an absolute family tragedy," Cunningham said. "I don’t think anybody would deny or disagree with that."
"The adult system is absolutely ill-equipped to address the needs of a 10-year-old child," she added.
Such cases of children being charged with homicide are rare, but not unprecedented in Wisconsin.
State law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for certain serious crimes, at least to start the case. Those crimes include first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
There was a time when my home state of Minnesota and Wisconsin traveled similar paths- solid safety nets, effective child protection laws, good union protection laws, and other things that made each state a great place to live. Then Republicans got ahold of Wisconsin, and it’s never been the same. Unions took a big hit. Education has taken significant funding cuts. The Badger State’s safety net now has some prominent holes.
No longer is Wisconsin a place where experiencing a rough patch can mean being able to count on assistance from the state. Republicans, whose default is to blame the poor for their circumstances, have worked that philosophy into the Badger State’s safety net. So now Wisconsin is, to use the words of a friend who lives there, “a fucking mess.”
Minnesota continues to have one of the most robust safety nets in the country. But, across the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, you’ll find that the Badger State is a Republican “Paradise.” And Wisconsin’s voters have brought it upon themselves.
When Republicans tell you what they’re going to do, you should believe them.
Wisconsin law acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of murdering two people with an AR-15. Now it’s giving us the spectacle of an emotionally disturbed 10-year-old boy being charged as an adult with first-degree reckless homicide.
That’s not justice. That’s the state of Wisconsin taking the easy way out instead of finding out who else deserves to be held accountable. Yes, the ten-year-old boy killed his mother, but there are adults who should be held liable for not doing their part.
This mother died at her son's hand, but it may also involve considerable negligence on the part of several people. They shouldn’t be allowed to walk away without consequence- and yet that’s almost certainly what will happen.
Republican justice is almost like no justice at all.
