dippin

I don't think people are blaming the object, but the negligence with regards to it. This whole "objects dont kill people, people kill people" is a cop out that can be applied to anything anywhere at any time. Not that I favor strict gun control or anything like that, but the same argument could be made about leaving an uncapped bottle of poison within a child's reach, or asking your 10 year old to drive, or anything like that. The point being that certain objects require a greater amount of supervision than others.

Saying that an 11 year old who has been telling his cousins that he wants to kill his step mom should not have free, unlimited and unsupervised access to guns and ammunition does not mean that one is for gun control or against guns. If the responsibility is civil or criminal is another matter. But I would imagine that even the staunchest pro-gun, NRA-card carrying person recognizes that it is gross negligence to let a kid who has had issues with the step mother, and who has made comments about killing her, have his own gun freely accessible at his room, and that perhaps the outcome of all of this would have been different had the gun been locked away or kept under the father's supervision.