Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Girl Killed in Wii remote Mix Up

13»

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,526 ✭✭✭m@cc@


    Sad story. Reminds me of this:
    Wiggum wrote:
    If he was going to commit a crime, would he have invited the number one cop in town? Now where did I put my gun? Oh yeah, I set it down when I got a piece of cake


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,345 ✭✭✭Dunjohn


    by that im sure you meant

    Ah yes, Wii pun #08965. How could I have failed in my duties!?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Sorry but your double-speak attempt to hide the fact that you are makign excuses for this guy just doesn't cut it for me. you either think his action was excusable or it wasn't. you can't have both.
    Yes. Because life is Binary.
    You've never met a 3 year old have you ? 10 to 1 on if you put something on a table and tell a three year old not to touch it, 5 minutes later as soon as your back is turned they are trying to eat it
    Giselle wrote: »
    Well no. Death is a complicated concept involving some understanding of the concept of forever, or eternity.

    Walking is one foot in front of the other.
    Fire: Bad.

    Gun: Bad.

    You know your kid better than I know your kid: think of something. Its not as if Im telling people to train kids, so we can leave loaded guns on tables. Obviously you dont leave a gun in reach of a child. But wouldn't you go that extra step and teach your child about a gun? So the guy is guilty of 2 things: leaving the gun on the table and not supervising the child/teaching her the difference between the wiimote gun and a real gun.
    Freak accident.. I could easily be drunk and pick up the real gun between games and think it's a wireless remote. Simple reason being that in my head, I'd be thinking "why would anyone leave a loaded gun in the room".


    Just thinking how horrible them few minutes must have been between the gunshot and the ambulance.. The realization of what just happened.
    I should think the guy is now Dead inside. And wouldnt be a bit surprised if he spent a long time in prison. Unlike some retired rugby stars.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,526 ✭✭✭m@cc@


    Overheal wrote: »
    So the guy is guilty of 2 things: leaving the gun on the table and not supervising the child/teaching her the difference between the wiimote gun and a real gun.

    The guy is guilty of having a gun in the same house as a 3-year old in the first place.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,540 ✭✭✭Giselle


    Overheal wrote: »


    Fire: Bad.

    Gun: Bad.

    You know your kid better than I know your kid: think of something. Its not as if Im telling people to train kids, so we can leave loaded guns on tables. Obviously you dont leave a gun in reach of a child. But wouldn't you go that extra step and teach your child about a gun? So the guy is guilty of 2 things: leaving the gun on the table and not supervising the child/teaching her the difference between the wiimote gun and a real gun.


    I don't have a kid, but I think if toy guns are available (not just wii ones, but generally) its much harder to make them realise that some are toys, and some kill you.

    Its much easier to teach fire = bad when they never play with fire.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    m@cc@ wrote: »
    The guy is guilty of having a gun in the same house as a 3-year old in the first place.
    Which is not a crime. You would have to check the State and Local Laws of Wilson County, TN.
    I don't have a kid, but I think if toy guns are available (not just wii ones, but generally) its much harder to make them realise that some are toys, and some kill you.

    Its much easier to teach fire = bad when they never play with fire.
    An absolutely fair point, and its why we have safety's (and hes guilty of not setting it as such).

    Actually M@cc@ that makes me rethink the whole School Suspension things for toy guns. It might be... perfectly reasonable. :o Wow. To think thats normally something the US gets mocked about.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,345 ✭✭✭landsleaving


    Aren't those realisitic looking gun peripherals banned here already? I always wondered why... apparently this situation CAN actually happen.


    @ Overheal: I do get where you're coming from in terms of the guy being worried about a prowler (who says prowler anymore?) and being pretty stressed etc. etc. at the time and not thinking completely straight. But if someone buys a gun they instantly have a responsibility to ensure it's only used if absolutely necessary and otherwise kept in a safe, secure place, no matter what the situation. Especially at a stressful time like that, because that's the only time you'd have the bloody thing out! If you can't handle that responsibility then you shouldn't have bought a gun in the first place and that is binary.


    10001000101010100101001000101010

    'You use your gun as a can opener?'


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,526 ✭✭✭m@cc@


    Overheal wrote: »
    Which is not a crime. You would have to check the State and Local Laws of Wilson County, TN.

    I meant guilty as in a contributing factor as opposed to the state law. I don't agree with gun ownership full stop but then I don't live there so it's not for me to dicate.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    I disagree, particularly if you're attempting to make a jibe at my comment.

    Computer games, particularly violent ones, can be very influential on a young child. I know this for a fact.

    Its no more different than kids pretending to shoot each other with cap guns when we were kids, and we all didnt grow up to have wanton desire for violence, it was an accident involving a careless parent and a child, the "wii style" gun is completely irrelevant to it aside from some juicy media hyperbole, why not have the headline "Girl killed in cap gun mix up" or "girl killed in hardware tool glue gun mix up"? Video games are an easy target for ignorant media types to cause some uproar over, the wii remote looks like a gun, not the other way around.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,526 ✭✭✭brendansmith


    The loaded firearm had been left on the coffee table in the living room of the girl’s house, after her stepfather thought he had heard a prowler outside.

    It would take more than a gun to stop nightman.

    http://www.tvacres.com/autos_crime_prowler.htm


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 428 ✭✭bigbadbear


    You've never met a 3 year old have you ? 10 to 1 on if you put something on a table and tell a three year old not to touch it, 5 minutes later as soon as your back is turned they are trying to eat it

    They did a test of this on Dr. Phil. They put a load of kids of varying ages in a room with toys and a gun and explained the danger to them and told them not to touch the gun and if they do blablabla. Almost every kid started playing with the gun when the adults left.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,898 ✭✭✭✭seanybiker


    what wii game has the option of shooting yourself? I think she was trying to ruin the game for the father.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 428 ✭✭bigbadbear


    krudler wrote: »
    Its no more different than kids pretending to shoot each other with cap guns when we were kids, and we all didnt grow up to have wanton desire for violence

    Kids pretending to shoot each other does influence them towards guns though. People aren't saying that if you see a violent video game you are going to do a random school drive-by. We are all more violent than we would have been if we never saw a violent scene in our lives. Thankfully for most of us the effect negligible.

    I think the 'violence in video games' doesn't really come into this one though. An absolute idiot left a gun near a child (You never know. maybe on purpose!). he should do time for it


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 25,000 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Ridley wrote: »
    Yeah! He should have accidentally shot himself while investigating a noise! Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!
    I'd certainly feel a lot happier if he had tbh.

    Anyone who keeps guns in a house with a child has to accept the fact they're endangering that child.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,002 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    :confused: ...if I was going outside to investigate a prowler I'd bring the loaded gun with me....wouldn't leave it on the coffee table with a 3 year old in the house....

    Yes.

    The story is not believable.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,786 ✭✭✭✭Hagar


    The stupidity of the parent's actions exceed what most people have mentioned so far. The pistol was not only loaded but the mechanism had been cocked with a live round chambered and the safety catch had been taken off before it was left down. It would be hard to imagine a 3yo working the slide and then releasing the safety. I have tbh I smell a rat.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,661 ✭✭✭General Zod


    the whole wii thing is a smoke screen by the parents. the kid picked up a loaded gun and shot herself in the stomach. These are the only pertinent facts.

    "I thought I heard a prowler"

    "It looked like the gun in the game she was playing"

    bullcrap.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,895 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    so what are you saying? let the mother/father off? crazy crazy crazy

    Their daughter was killed. I would not call that being let off. I would call that a life punishment.

    I ask again. What would imprisoning them do for either them (in order to teach them the errors of their ways) or society (spending money and jail space to punish someone for something they're already punishing themselves for)?
    The guy had the gun out because he thought - according to the article - there was a Prowler around. So anyone saying it should have been locked: technically, the gun was Active in that it wasnt just lying around for 3 weeks hoping someone would shoot themselves in the face. It was being used for a legitimate purpose (not legitmate in Ireland, but we need not go there)

    It was sitting on the table, unmonitored. I'd hardly call that 'active.' A firearms owner must make an overall assessment of the security of his weapon. Noting that 'there's a three-year-old in the house' should be pretty high on that assessment.
    Having a gun in a house is significantly more dangerous than not having a gun in a house.

    I beg to differ. I strongly believe I am safer with my sidearm than without. It comes down to what you do with it.
    Anyone who keeps guns in a house with a child has to accept the fact they're endangering that child.

    Rubbish. Anyone who irresponsibly leaves firearms unattended in an operable condition within reach of a child (in the house or not) is endangering the child. People who keep firearms in their house without leaving them in a position where they could be manipulated by a child (eg holster, locked up, or simply unloaded) are not endangering anyone, except those they intend to endanger.

    NTM


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,786 ✭✭✭✭Hagar


    Anybody who has ever handled a semi-auto will be aware of the weight. It feels nothing like a flimsy plastic WII pistol which will weigh maybe 100g or so while a .380 semi will weigh in at approx 700g unloaded maybe 850g loaded. Not a handy weight for a small child to handle. I still think there is a twist in this story.


Advertisement
Advertisement