Kevin killed himself playing Russian Roulette with what I must assume he thought was an empty gun. The gun was not empty, but even if it was he should not have been playing Russian Roulette with it. Bottom line: A handgun was in the hands of a person who should not have had access to it. Someone owns that gun and needs to take responsibility for it.
It is typical but disturbing that the local sheriff in charge of the case is not saying anything about the gun’s owner, plans to find out who it is, or plans to do something about it. That may well be a law enforcement official being careful, but more likely, and I say this because it is usually the case, there is no intention to follow up. The tragedy of the death is sufficient to make the owner of the gun feel really really bad so don’t bother.
The original report does say that the gun may have been obtained from outside the home. So, there is hope that someone is thinking about this. The key to reducing the outrageous death toll among kids due to handguns and other firearms is to hold the owners of the guns responsible.
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
Don’t hold your breath, gun-nuts will never own up to being responsible for this shit.
Nobody NEEDS a firearm. Nobody. Why they’re still legal… *smh*
Kevin Hudgens is responsible for his own actions. At 16 he should be aware that
a) bullets can kill
b) pulling the trigger fires a bullet
c) pointing the barrel at oneself creates a high probability of injury
The rules for handling firearms are simple.
Always assume it’s loaded.
Never point it at anything unless you intend to shoot.
Never put your finger on the trigger until you intend to shoot.
Teens play Russian Roulette knowing they can get hurt or killed. Simply playing Russian Roulette breaks all rules for handling firearms. And the people playing it know that.
The owner of the gun is only responsible for safeguarding the firearm, not the actions of the (presumably competent) person who misused it.
Would you react the same if he had killed himself with a knife? An icepick? A screwdriver? They’re all tools that can be misused. Kevin Hudgens obviously and knowingly misused the handgun.
Norman Thorsen:
“Teenagers, stop making bad decisions!”
There we go, problem solved. Whew! That was a close one!
And the difference between killing yourself with an icepick, or a screwdriver, or a car, or (the vast majority of) knives – and a firearm – is that in all of the other instances, you were using the tool incorrectly. Killing yourself with a handgun is using it for its intended purpose – fatal damage to a human being at close range.
Handguns are not like other tools, because we generally try to discourage (for instance) lawn mowers that are explicitly designed to kill people. Likewise with can openers, or elevators, or mechanical pencils.
Killing someone with a crowbar is a possible use.
Killing someone with a handgun is the correct use.
Some people would say that’s a slight difference.
Anri:
The correct use of a handgun is self defense or defense of another.
Kevin Hudgens didn’t use it correctly. He violated all the rules for firearms use and safety.
Yes, teenagers make bad decisions. However, he is still responsible for his decisions, bad or otherwise.
The report provides no info on how he acquired the firearm so blaming the owner for anything is premature. Blaming the owner for Kevin’s bad judgment and misuse of the firearm deliberately minimizes Kevin’s culpability.
Norman, I partly agree with you. A 16 year old should probably be held responsible for his or her own actions. But holding one person responsible for an action does not automatically mean that others are not responsible.
We have a huge problem in this country with guns wandering off to where they should not be. I advocate for legislation to make that a more serious offense (letting the guns wander off, that is … guns don’t wander off, people let them wander off) and to enforce it.
You’d be surprised how many GSWs to the head EDs get from either people playing Russian Roullette, OR emptying a gun, and forgetting to empty the chamber. It is a depressingly common injury by people who had no intention of committing suicide.
I tend to agree with you, Greg. I like shooting guns, used to own one – and I fully accept that it was my responsibility to see to it that that weapon was safely stored, safely used, properly handled at all times, and eventually, properly disposed of. (Destroyed by West Australian government, in my case.) No one under 18 should have access to a deadly weapon unsupervised.
Yes this is tragic.
However we teach children to look both ways before crossing the street, but some don’t and die! Would you recommend that the driver be held responsible for circumferences beyond his control?
Teenagers do stupid things every day, but the idea that someone else is responsible just doesn’t hold up.
Teenagers are (legally) responsible for their actions? They can sign legally enforceable contracts? I think not. While we may quibble about the age of majority – in the US at least, it is 18 (unless you are talking about drinking). He was *not* responsible. And – even if *he* was, what about the 14 year old that accidentally killed his friend? The eight year old that shot his sister? Yes – tragic accidents, but at what point does the owner of the firearm become responsible? (BTW, I think ‘never’ is not an acceptable answer to that question.)
WMDKitty, you’re flirting with a serious morass there. You can’t legislate others’ rights based on what you find personally objectionable. That’s the same type of argument the righties use when they try to block gay marriage.
Put more succinctly: No one needs to get married, so why should anyone object to no one being allowed to?
That said, gun owners tend to overlook the ‘well-regulated militia’ part of Amendment II when they rabbit on about constitutional rights. There are also responsibilities, as Greg rightly points out here. The attitude seems to be, ‘I want to be able to keep my guns, dammit, no matter who it hurts.’ That is an attitude bordering on the immoral, and as an atheist, I do not use the word immoral lightly.
I keep my firearms the hell away from kids. Particularly testosterone-loaded ones who might want to find a way to pass a boring Sunday afternoon. That kid needed a girl/boyfriend, a satchel of rubbers, and a few hours free of inappropriate guilt more than he needed a .22 revolver. (I live in the town this happened in, and there’s damn little else to do.)
That the pistol might have been acquired from outside his home is even more troubling. It suggests that he might never have had any instruction at all on firearm handling or safety – and it suggests a criminal degree of irresponsibility on the part of the gun owner. What if he’d decided to play ‘firing squad’ instead of Russian roulette? What if it had fallen into the hands of some seriously disturbed kid? Trust me on this – we’ve got a hell of a lot of them here.
I don’t know what kind of follow-up there will be. This town is very pro-gun – as is the entire state, actually – but it’s not an election year, so it might be politically safe for the sheriff’s department to decide to prosecute the gun owner for his stupidity.
And make no mistake – if there is no follow-up here, it’ll almost certainly be because of politics. The NRA is just as likely to come lurching over the horizon with its war-cry (‘from my cold dead hands’) as not. That shambling monster doesn’t need much prodding. And suddenly, a sensible criminal-negligence case becomes a charged debate on gun rights.
Amazing how effective the ‘right’ is when it comes to framing; that’s something the rest of us really need to get better at.
On the whole, a stupid thing for a kid to do – and a stupid thing for a gun owner to allow to happen in the first place. One stupid person paid with his life. What penalty will the other stupid person face?
There are degrees of culpability. A 16 year old has a higher degree than a 14 year old, who has a higher degree than a 9 year old. IANAL,but I seem to remember that the legal thresholds are 18, where you are assumed to have an adult level [although there certainly is not a complete maturation of the brain at that time] and 7, when a child of that age is assumed to have virtually none and the parent[s] are responsible.
The 16 year old should be apportioned most, but not all, of the culpability.
Well the gun owner is certainly responsible if a child can get unsupervised access to a firearm.
I have guns, but it would be near impossible to get to them and use them without some serious commitment of time, effort, and metal cutting implements and/or explosives. This clearly was not the case with Kevin Hudgens. The owner of the gun was obviously being irresponsible if someone else got access to it.
Stupid Tragedy is part of life!
My house has always had guns in it; my daughters learned very early that guns aren’t toys and also had lessons in safely using them.
I can only imagine how the gun owner feels, but you’d better believe he feels more than really really bad.
The key to reducing the outrageous death toll among kids due to handguns and other firearms is to teach they are responsible for their own welfare. I’m an NRA member and I can assure you we all take gun safety seriously and do teach it to children. There isn’t any excuse for a sixteen year old to assume a gun is empty and to play with it.
The bottom line is that “Kevin killed himself playing Russian Rouletteâ€.
The biggest argument that seems to be proposed here for not holding the owner responsible seems to be, “He wasn’t directly responsible for the kids actions” and “I have the right to my guns!”
Responsibility is the magic word that brings in the indignant folks, despite every right implying an inherent responsibility within it. They scream that their right is being violated if they are being held to the correlated responsibility.
“How dare you say I have a responsibility to do X!”
If you can’t point out the responsibility you have by each right you claim, then maybe you shouldn’t be privy to that right. With the level of responsibility commonly shown by groups like the NRA, I kind of doubt many of the loudest voices should have this right.
What outrageous death toll are you referring to? The average is 11.5 per hundred thousand population per state. This includes all firearm deaths, accidents suicides, police shootings everything.
It is much lower than the death rate from heart disease, smoking and automobiles. When are you going to call for the ban of automobiles?
Although this persons death is tragic as all are, it is statistically insignificant. If you really want to protect children get them better drivers ed programs.
We would have no idea that he killed himself playing Russian roulette, rather than simply committing suicide, were it not for the other people present. In my view, they have more moral culpability than the gun owner.
Tragic for the family. Sometimes, it seems we are a screwed-up species, that some of us can do things so intentionally stupid.
Why do you assume he did not know the gun was loaded? The original report says nothing about that.
An important thing to remember about young humans is that the only thing they seem to be born knowing is not to be in high places. Everything else, you have to teach them. I’m pretty sure that gun safety is not instinctive, even among Nth generation NRA members.
Gun-safety education is an ongoing task. What’s obvious to someone familiar with guns is not obvious to anyone else … other wise there would be no need for gun safety education, right? I often read NRA members saying that they know all about gun safety and teach their kids all about it from early ages. Well, isn’t that special? However, that is not NRA mainstream.
Instead of squealing like stuck pigs this summer, the NRA in Florida should have supported family doctors in their efforts to encourage gun safety education among gun owners. The NRA should not have interfered in doctor-patient confidentiality and forbidding doctors talking about guns. They should have printed up gun-safety education pamphlets and given them to doctors and hospitals all around the state, to hand out to people families with guns and kids. I think the NRA shot themselves in the foot on that one, and blew an opportunity to fix up their image.
I heard this incident described as a “botched” game of Russian roulette on the local TV news, which I thought was odd — isn’t this pretty much how it’s supposed to go?
How is Russian roulette ever a “game”, anyway? Is it really played by people who aren’t already suicidal? If so… why? What are they expecting to happen?
Is there some way to “play” this “game” that I’m not aware of?
Would you recommend that the driver be held responsible for circumferences beyond his control?
Not even in the same ballpark as an analogy.
This is more like someone leaving their car running with a case of beer and a bag of pot visible in the back seat in front of a high school late in the spring semester.
Paul, you are wrong and your attitude is dangerious.
My house has always had guns in it; my daughters learned very early that guns aren’t toys and also had lessons in safely using them.
Have the guns always been locked up, did your daughters go through teenage years or did they somehow skip that, and did they not have any friends (or for that matter enemies or any other acquaintance)?
The teens who took daddys guns and shot themselves as a means of committing suicide … their dads also could have said what you said here.
ckerst, will you be the statistical concern troll for this thread?
Roungly speacking, 80 percent of the time a person attempts suicide using a means other than a firearm they fail, and then they don’t attempt again.
90 percent of the time a person attempts suicide with a firearm they succeed.
Teens and young adults are doing a very large percentage of this, and often the fire arm was acquired easily because it was not locked up.
If you leave your firearms in an insecure manner, one of the very serious risks is that it will be used by someone to kill themselves, if there are teens/young adults in the house.
The vast, vast majority of time that you park your car and don’t lock it, no one breaks in to it. I assume that since I’ve just told you that, you will never, ever lock your car again. Because it would make no sense. Right?
Russell, maybe, but we don’t know the details. Susan, yes, we don’t know sufficient detail from this report.
An important thing to remember about young humans is that the only thing they seem to be born knowing is not to be in high places.
Than why does Huxley keep trying to climb up shit all the time?????
Instead of squealing like stuck pigs this summer, the NRA in Florida should have supported family doctors in their efforts to encourage gun safety education among gun owners.
Exactly.
Nemo, the answer to this question (is there a way to play it) could be answered by a friend of mine who has one foot; Russian roulette with mortar, in a combat theater. The answer is: “Drunk, Stoned and Stupid.”
Greg Laden writes:
When I was in highschool, a roommate attempted suicide with a safety razor. Which likely works about 0% of the time. Though he did manage to make a bloody mess of his bed. He had easy access to far more lethal means. A regular razor. Jumping from a height. Rope. Or a gun.
But he chose a means predictably about as lethal as kicking a rock. Which might have reflected his general incompetence. Or as likely, he wasn’t really that intent on taking his own life. My suspicion is that people who really are intent on that, and still capable, choose a gun.
Other than the pot, which is illegal in itself, do you think doing that should be against the law?
“Paul, you are wrong and your attitude is dangerous.â€
Yes I take responsibility that guns are dangerous. I am very involved in my daughter’s lives and know they were both stable personalities. However I can’t protect my daughters against all the dangers in the world so I taught them to take care of themselves and to ask for help when life was difficult.
When the girls were very small my guns weren’t loaded and the ammunition was stored separately and however as teens my daughters were smart enough to get to guns if they wanted to and I couldn’t have prevented access. Kevin was sixteen and there isn’t any excuse for a sixteen year old to assume a gun is empty and to play with it.
Perhaps this tragedy could have been prevented but still the bottom line is that “Kevin killed himself playing Russian Rouletteâ€.
My girls are now in their late twenties and are mature fine ladies.
I’m mentally unstable but was allowed to buy my first shotgun when I was twelve because my parents believed I was mature and steady enough for the responsibility. While nothing bad happened, it was really a pretty bad idea. It might not have been such a bad idea if my parents had kept the trigger mechanism locked up, but that didn’t even occur to them.
I know a number of people who appear to be as steady as can be, because they have learned to pretend they are stable. I learned to pretend I am stable when I was quite young – pretending well enough that *I* actually believed it. This is extremely common with kids who have these sorts of problems, because we want to fit in – at least to some degree or another. And of course there are mental illnesses that may not manifest until kids become teenagers.
I wanted to die when I was nine. It was only due to my stark terror of going to hell that prevented me from killing myself. Even with my stark terror of hell, I rigged up my shotgun a couple of times – convincing myself that I was just curious how someone might actually kill themselves with a shotgun or rifle. Maybe that was actually my intent, but it’s rather hard to support that belief when I damned well knew better than to muck about with a loaded shotgun.
People assume everyday that *their* children know better than to have sex. People assume everyday that *their* children would never use drugs or drink as a minor. People assume everyday that *their* children are stable, upbeat and positive. People assume everyday that because they “are doing it right,” their kids are magically going to be immune to the bad things that happen to the children of “bad” parents – and that the kids who do any of the above obviously have crappy parents.
The truth however, is that the children of parents who “do it right” still engage in somewhat dangerous behaviors. They screw, they use mind altering substances and even though they appear to be happy and stable, still commit suicide. Kids are a hell of a lot better at hiding what is actually going on with them, than most parents can begin to comprehend – largely because they don’t want to accept that their parenting isn’t perfect and because they don’t want to admit that no matter what they do or how well they do it, their children are autonomous beings who will make their own decisions – including bad ones.
My parents did it “right.” I had a stable, decent home where all my needs were met. My parents never left any ambiguity about their love for me. While I had some noticeable problems, they were normal teen problems and mitigated to some degree by my abilities as a peer counselor. The older I got, the more “normal” I appeared in many ways, excepting that I was very good at picking out the signs of suicidal ideation (never occurred to anyone to think about why that might be) and helping other kids deal with their bullshit. ]
Everything seemed reasonably normal until I dropped out of school and then took off hitchhiking, also starting a 17 odd year odyssey into substance abuse. I spent years engaging in dangerous and self-destructive behavior.
Point being, parents are quiet often completely clueless about what is actually happening in their children’s heads. Even open lines of communication, fostered by an environment of mutual respect and trust is no guarantee (though it certainly does help). Not taking basic precautions, simply because you don’t believe your children “know better” and are “stable, reasonable kids” is fucking stupid. Shit happens, including shit that you would never have seen coming.
I am very involved in my daughter’s lives and know they were both stable personalities.
Again, that is what people OFTEN think after before daughter had died at her own hand. That is probably, hopefully, not the case for you and your family, but you need to understand that saying “I try hard and everything seems fine” does not remove you from the set of people who try hard, think everything is fine, then a teenager commits suicide.
… as teens my daughters were smart enough to get to guns if they wanted to and I couldn’t have prevented access. Kevin was sixteen and there isn’t any excuse for a sixteen year old to assume a gun is empty and to play with it.
Excellent. Excellent example of why the legislation I propose is needed.
Perhaps this tragedy could have been prevented but still the bottom line is that “Kevin killed himself playing Russian Rouletteâ€.
The part you’ve got wrong here is your use of “the” … Our legal system does not recognize that, and our society usually doesn’t recognize that when it stopps to think.
Lock the guns up, Paul. You shouldn’t be allowed to own them if you don’t.
Greg
I hesitated before responding to this blog because I thought we’d just end up talking passed each other, as indeed we have.
Greg writes:
Because Greg has discussed what laws he would like, it’s worth pointing out that laws that mandate trigger locks are unconstitutional. As are laws that mandate other forms of gun storage that would prevent having a gun ready for home defense. The Supreme Court struck those down in Heller:
That ruling is pretty clear, and has since has been incorporated by McDonald. You may argue that is sometimes imprudent to so keep a gun in the home. Or always. But if you’re wanting law to ban doing so, you have a long row to hoe.
Paul, we are not talking past each other.
I’m saying that people who have guns in their home should have them under lock and key. You’re saying they don’t have to do that. We have different opinions. That’s not talking past each other.
My son and daughter (toddler and teenager) can’t get at the guns because they are locked firmly in a safe. I don’t think Julia is going to shoot herself or anyone else, and I’ll raise Huxley up to be a good boy.
You were under the impression that your kids were are will be or are ‘safe’ in this regard as well.
Many, many of the instances where guns were used in a way that left a kid, teenager, or young adult dead ivolved the guns not being locked up.
What you are saying, that we are talking past each other, is not true. What is true is that your guns are not locked up. That is the only important fact here. This is not “talking past each other.” It is just you leaving your guns accessible.
(I quickly add: In my case, the guns are not in my house, but in a seasonal house my kids spend a fair amount of time in.)
rturpin, yes, it is unfortunate that many aspects of gun ownership and safety are controlled by a bad sequence of decisions related to the Constitution.
What I find truly amazing and utterly maddening is this: Thousands of people die every year because of the NRA-loving interpretation of the Second Amendment. Suggesting that the Second Amendment be changed is impossible, politically. Meanwhile, suggesting that there be a constitutional amendment making it impossible for two people to get married if they are not a man and a woman is trivially easy, politically.
We live at present in a society in which the former is impossible, the latter is easy. My intention is to work towards change such that the reverse is true.
The Constitution originally said nothing about marriage. It did say something about “Well-Regulated Militias.”
I don’t want guns banned, I just want to be able to register them, make sure people take safety courses, make stiffer penalties for when they are used in the commission of a crime, keep them away from people who would shout their teenagers who are sneaking back into the house stoned at two in the morning, keep them away from people who would shoot strangers who knock on the door when they show up at the wrong house accidentally.
I also think it is fucking stupid that the gun nuts who want to protect themselves from the government with a .38 handgun, protecting their “freedoms” deny the freedoms of same-sex partners who want legal recognition of their marriage.
The tide is changing with regard to gay marriage. I no long worry that the Constitution will be amended to ban it. More, I suspect within a decade or two, we’ll see a 14th amendment ruling that protects it. Late, after most states implement it.
The unfortunate thing about gun politics in this nation is that the 2nd amendment is about the only part of the Bill of Rights that much concerns the right wing. And despite the narrowness of that concern, they have used it to great effect.
I do understand the need to change how guns are stored depending on what children are around. A year ago, I was at a ranch with some grandchildren, and did some target shooting with a son-in-law. At which, one of the teenage grandkids looked at me as if I had landed from Mars, and remarked, “I didn’t know you shot!” Surprised, because she had previously lived with us.
According to census.gov, in 2009 1400 drivers under 18 were drivers in fatal accidents. The key to reducing the outrageous death toll among kids due to cars and other vehicles is to hold the owners of the cars responsible.
Mu, the key to reducing the death toll in car accidents is to manage the problem with cars in whatever way makes sense. In contract, an in an unrelated story, it also happens that the key to reducing the death toll because of guns mishandled by teenagers is DIFFERENT. … seat belts wont’ help them, and making cars safer won’t help them.
There is yet ANOTHER DIFFERENT issue as well: the number of teens killed by gunshot wounds are probably bad kids in gangs shooting at each other PLUS good kids who happen to get shot in street violence of that kind. That’s a DIFFERENT kind of situation where getting dad to lock up his gun would have only a small effect because that is not where most of those guns come from.
So, Mu, here’s the thing. You get sick. You go to the dr. The dr. sais “Hey Mu, you’ve got a form of cancer that is quite deadly, not too common, but easily fixed. But, since other forms of equally deadly cancer are more common, we don’t even bother keeping the drugs for this kind of cancer that you’ve got aroun. It makes no sense to treat your cancer, so you’ve got 6 months to live, so make the most of it”
And you go “Hey, wait, so what if some other people have some other kind of cancer! What about me? I have a DIFFERENT problem, and it can be easily fixed! No fair!”
And the Dr goes. “Mu, do yo not remember that comment you made on The X Blog a while back, expressing cold indifference to the plight of children who die because of mishandled firearms in the home that should have been locked up?”
“.. But that’s differen’….”
“No, Mu, it is not different. It is the same exact situation. And since you made that comment, and I’m a Dr. who believes in Karma, I’m not going to …’
“… No, wait, I’m sorry” you say to the smug doctor. “I was just trying to make it so no one made me lock up my private gun collection. I don’t want anyone to touch my guns…”
And the doctor says, “Mu, do you love your guns?”
And you go “Yes, doctor, yes, I do love my guns!”
And the doctor says, “Well, then, you should have no problme.”
“You’re gonna treat my cancer?”
“No, Mu, I’m not.”
Perplexed look on Mu’s face.
“You love your guns, and I wont’ treat your cancer, so you face a painful, ugly death. I suggest that in about thee months you take your favorite gun out on a date. To the woods where you won’t make much of a mess…”
Sorry, Mu, we’ve been there, done that. What you just said in comment 35 is stupid, offensive, and makes you look like an idiot. And now maybe you know why. But somehow I doubt it.
Mu @35 –
We have a licensure and strict car-control system in place, which both educates new drivers in the proper use of vehicles, and significantly reduces the number of fatal collisions by doing what’s reasonable to ensure that untrained or impaired individuals have minimal access to cars.
We have an elaborate system for penalties around unsafe use of cars, and we have extensive measures taken in the form of locks and keys to ensure that only the owner of the car – or an owner’s designated representative – will nominally be given any sort of control at all over the vehicle.
Will you accept having the same system in place for guns?
Bear in mind that I, as a gun owner, am willing to see much heavier measures taken against illicit gun ownership and use than are currently in place. Not all of us who own firearms suffer from the ‘from my cold dead hands’ psychosis.
Oddly enough, we have much more regulation in place for guns than for cars. Screw up with your car, get community service and driver’s ed. Most gun delinquencies get you banned on owning a gun for life, with 5 years federal time for offenders. And I fully support reasonable gun control and registration. I don’t believe that “once the government knows I own guns it will take them away”, it might even stop police departments from doing SWAT raids for traffic violations if they check and there’s no gun registered.
And Greg, in your rather contrived scenario, I have PPO insurance, I just change providers. As for you, what will you tell the judge when he gives the guy who drunk driving killed your kid 3 months suspended, for the cold indifference you showed to juvenile car victims in your posts on the X-blog? I also think your comment made you look like an idiot, so it’s too far fetched to be offensive.
You aren’t terribly clever there Mu, are you? Sorry for that, I sincerely hope things improve for you on that front.