Four year old shoots father dead.

[Warren Dew]

How drearily predictable

My 4 year old would not have shot me, since I would not have visited a gun owner with him. I would have gone alone.

According to some of our friends here, many gun owners in the States refuse to disclose that they own a gun - and proudly say they will never cooperate with registration - so you might not know. And as we see time and time again, incidents like this do happen. Yet every gun owner insists that they themselves are "responsible gun owners", so we can trust them.

The 4 year old's father was the gun owner's former roommate. I'd be surprised if he didn't know that his former roommate was in the habit of leaving loaded guns out.

Plus, you know, once he got inside the house, he could see the gun, just like the 4 year old could.

Should that absolve the owner of responsibility?

It would depend on specifics that we don't know, but in general, my reaction would be yes. Adults who don't have children shouldn't be required to live their lives as if they had children - whether that means using gun safes at all times or keeping baby gates at the top and bottom of their stairs at all times - and the fact is, adults who don't have children usually aren't really familiar with the idiosyncrasies of children, anyway, and aren't really familiar with the steps needed to keep them safe.