Toddler Kills Grandfather With Unattended AK-47
Read Time:2 Minute, 34 Second
It’s been less than a week since Elliot Rodger shot and killed 3 people and injured 12 others during an Isla Vista, California shooting spree. It’s still in the public conscience and talk of gun control is once again at the top of the news. One would think that people would be more careful with their weapons than the Florida man who left his loaded AK-47, an assault rifle that civilians should not be allowed to own, unattended, resulting in his 6-year old nephew picking it up and shooting his grandfather.
A Florida man is facing negligence charges after leaving his loaded AK-47 unattended, resulting in his 6-year-old nephew picking it up and accidentally shooting his grandfather.
According to WSVN, Juan Manuel Martinez Jr., 28, has been charged with culpable negligence of a firearm for not keeping an eye on his loaded AK-47, authorities said.
According to police, Martinez was having a beer with his father, Juan Manuel Martinez Sr., at a family barbeque when talk turned to hunting. Martinez Jr. brought out his AK-47 to share, handing it to his father who then set it on a table.
A nephew of Martinez Jr. picked up the unattended assault rifle and pulled the trigger, shooting his grandfather in the chest and killing him.
“It’s not his fault. He didn’t know what he was doing,” Martinez Jr. said. “He’s just a little boy. I love him. He’s my family. I love all my family.”
Martinez added that he was unaware that his nephew was nearby.
“We heard the gun shot go off. My father was struck in the chest before he was airlifted to the hospital, and they told us that he passed,” he said.”I should’ve never brought the firearm out.”
“In this particular case, investigators informed us, that there was alcohol involved. Not only alcohol. We also had drugs. We had cocaine,” said Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta.
Martinez admitted to WSVN that he had been doing drugs and drinking before the accident, saying, “I was smoking marijuana. I was doing cocaine, and I had two beers.”
Martinez called the shooting an accident, saying no one was to blame.
“The family is not trying to point the finger at anybody,” he said. “This is a tragic event that occurred. We can’t say it was my fault, it was my nephew’s fault, it was my father’s fault. It’s just a tragic event that occurred. If there was anything I could do to bring him back, God help me I would.”
“If you are a gun owner, you need to know that you are responsible for that gun. You’re responsible on how to handle that gun and of the safety of the people around you,” said Zabaleta.
Martinez Jr. was arrested, booked, and released from jail.
The 6-year-old is in the care of his family and is receiving grief counseling.
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First, any gun control measures without gun confiscation will not work. California has some of the toughest laws and you see how well they work. Without changing the constitution this is not an option so what to do….
Well I propose government provides gun safes, tax incentives for gun safety classes, and promote not lethal forms of protection. We have a systemic problem of mental health and violence glorified by many who are quick to soapbox on gun deaths.
If you try to confiscate guns or if try pass sensible legislation there will be a backlash. It seems self evident that a ban on one weapon would lead to more and more and NRA knows this and fights even common sense laws because is a calculated stepping stone to disarm the populace.
Michael Moore covered the subject of American violence in his movie, “Bowling for Columbine.” What he noted most profoundly was the cultural differences between US and Canadian societies. In Canada, gun ownership rates are somewhat comparable to those in the US. So it wasn’t the guns so much as the culture of violence that separates the US from Canada. There is, of course, a qualitative difference in the number and type of guns as well. But “Bowing for Columbine” illustrated that there’s more to the problem than the hardware….it’s a social issue about guns, violence and more.
Michael Moore doesn’t get much respect…even from “lefties”. His exploration of the subject is far too nuanced for most black-and-white positioning.
He also made a grave error in the movie. At the time he produced the movie, Charlton Heston was still very actively involved with the NRA, and Moore humiliated him. Heston, then ravaged with Alzheimer’s Disease, was a doddering old fart by the time Moore got to him – obviously so – and Moore made the grievous mistake of enabling Heston – who was, after all, “Moses” and “Ben Hur” for Cristsake – to make a fool of himself. Heston was no intellectual match for Moore, but Moore should have known better than to attack this cultural icon. Moore’s message was lost in the brouhaha over his treatment of Charlton Heston.
As brilliantly insightful as “Bowling for Columbine” was, it was also very divisive, and it became a rallying point for growing NRA resolve. And Heston had already paved the way for the current NRA regime: http://home.nra.org/history/video/a-salute-to-wayne-lapierre/list/charlton-heston In the wake of “Bowling for Columbine,” the NRA amped up its efforts to discredit all detractors.
Moore’s fatal strategic mistake notwithstanding, taken at face value, this movie is a must see. It explores violence in the USA in ways few others have, and it encourages self evaluation of our society that transcends the tools of mass murder and gets more to the perpetrators of mass murder.
I’ve seen it. Pretty frightening I found it.
Aren’t they quite heavy? Must have been a body building toddler or some’at!
It’s insane that these murder machines can be owned by the public. The only people who should have them are the military and police. What we need are Japan’s gun laws copied here. America is obviously too violent a society to have easy access to guns.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/
Agreed Preston!
Since it’s up to prosecutors to levy charges and pursue convictions, this would be a difficult tactic to employ, but from an advocacy point of view, I suggest:
1. Gun control advocates develop relationships with prosecutors in each jurisdiction where these events happen.
2. Find prosecutors who are willing to go to the wall on this issue.
3. Pursue convictions on the most grievous charges that can be applied.
4. Attempt to secure convictions.
5. Plan for NRA-supported appeals.
6. Attempt to move up through the court systems to secure an appointment in front of SCOTUS.
7. Advocacy groups would need to pick their battles to ensure that the “right” case(s) go before SCOTUS.
This is how MANY human rights and legal authority cases end up setting legal precedent. EVERY case is an opportunity, but only select cases warrant an all-out assault by advocates, because the rest of the cases (as with the George Zimmerman case) would lead to judgments that set the wrong precedent…for one reason or another.
This is where the ACLU has set a high bar in selecting cases they could win at the highest levels. I don’t agree with everything the ACLU does, but their tactics work and the results speak for themselves.
Legislating “gun control” may be a fool’s errand at the moment, but criminalizing the misconduct of morons with guns is a sure way to secure far more enforcement of the laws we already have. And if I recall, the NRA would have us believe that guns are regulated enough. The task here would be to prove them right!
“This is a tragic event that occurred. We can’t say it was my fault, it was my nephew’s fault, it was my father’s fault”
2 things about fault:
1: Yes, we CAN say it was your fault! We can’t say it was your nephew’s fault or your father’s fault. YOU brought out a loaded gun! Your nephew should not have been allowed to be anywhere near a loaded gun – that was your fault! Your father TALKED about shooting, but HE didn’t bring out a loaded gun! How can you even submit that “we can’t say it was your fault”? IT WAS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT!!
2: Being able to assign “fault” is totally inconsequential. The grandfather was killed. It doesn’t matter whose “fault” it was; he’s dead. Your nephew has that over his head for all of his life! If he was killed by a meteor falling out of the sky, he’d still be dead. The best thing you can do now is to try to help your nephew heal his life. That’s something you would have to do regardless of how the grandfather was killed. Move on. And quit blaming others for YOUR mistakes!
Hear, hear!
Not to mention you were high on cocaine, happy on pot, and drinking at the time.
White babies kill White geriatrics with military assault rifles, and the crack smokin’ redneck gets charged with a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, innocent, Deaf Latino, Felix Garcia is on his 32nd year of a life sentence. Just something to think about.
Wait – what? Negligence? He’s charged with Negligence? No, negligence is forgetting to set your parking brake on a hill. Leaving a machine gun lying around your living room, while you sit in the kitchen getting stinko, is a bit more than negligence.
If America is the Land of the Insane, then Florida is the “D” Ward.