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A mother smoked marijuana in the front seat, sheriff says. In the back, her 4-year-old found a gun and shot himself.

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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With her three young children in the back seat, a Louisiana mother and her friend smoked marijuana in the front of the car, unaware of the danger lying just below them.
They weren’t watching 4-year-old Jarion Walker, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto said Monday. Not when he found a gun under one of their seats, not as he was playing with it, not when he pressed it against his forehead.

And not when he pulled the trigger.
Lopinto said at a news conference that investigators believe Jarion shot himself around 10:45 p.m. Saturday in a residential neighborhood just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. The boy was taken to a hospital, where he later died. The mother and her friend have not been identified.

No one has been arrested in Jarion’s death, although prosecutors could decide to file charges once they receive the case from the sheriff’s office. The mother and her friend have cooperated with investigators, Lopinto said.


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“We can always put blame on people,” the sheriff added. “When it comes down to it, I don’t think it was appropriate to make an arrest on this at this point. They’ve just lost a child, and it certainly wasn’t intentional by any means.”
Children accidentally shoot themselves or others hundreds of times every year, according to data from Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group. Since 2015, there have been 2,440 such shootings, which killed 915 people.


American toddlers are still shooting people on a weekly basis this year
In one such shooting, a toddler found an unsecured, loaded handgun inside a “Paw Patrol” backpack in his Florida home on Aug. 11, The Washington Post reported. He then fatally shot his mother while she was on a Zoom call for work. The child’s father, 22-year-old Veondre Avery, was charged with manslaughter and failure to securely store a firearm.






Police have reported other close calls involving children and unsecured weapons. Last spring, a kindergartner in Florida found a loaded handgun in his backpack after he arrived at school, The Post reported. The boy’s mother later told police she’d put it there while cleaning her car the night before but forgot to remove it before her son went to school.
Two kids, a loaded gun and the man who left a 4-year-old to die
Deaths like Jarion’s are avoidable; gun owners need only secure their firearms and keep them in places children can’t access, Lopinto said. “These types of deaths can certainly be prevented,” the sheriff said. “As a parent, we should never leave a gun inside of our vehicles for numerous different reasons, this one being the most tragic.”

The gun Jarion found belongs to his father, who was not in the car during the shooting, Lopinto said. He had left it in the vehicle, the sheriff added, unbeknown to Jarion’s mother or her friend.






At first, investigators thought Jarion had been shot in the back of the head, leading them to focus on the two other children in the back seat, according to the sheriff. That presented a problem: Investigators believed his siblings — both under the age of 2 — were too young to manipulate the gun.
Then, Jarion’s autopsy revealed he had suffered a contact wound to the forehead, which was supported by evidence investigators collected from the car, Lopinto said. Investigators concluded Jarion had shot himself.
In America, a child is shot every hour, and hundreds die. Here are 13 young lives lost in 2021.
Jarion was playful, loved toys and had already taken a liking to basketball, his great-uncle, Charles Young, told Nola.com. Just days ago, the 4-year-old was jumping on his bed with his sister while visiting Young.
“He was a good kid,” he said.
The great-uncle told Nola.com he endured a near-sleepless night after he found out what had happened. As he talked about it in the days that followed, he struggled to accept the tragedy.
“What the hell is going on here?” Young said, adding, “It’s just so hard to believe that that little man is gone.”

 
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Reactions: mattymoknows
If the mother had been armed, this would not have happened.

As always, the answer to gun crimes and accidents is more guns.
 
If the mother had been armed, this would not have happened.

As always, the answer to gun crimes and accidents is more guns.
I'm reminded of a recent Bill Maher line that went somwthing like (paraphrasing) "we can put a safety device in a car that alerts you if it is too hot to.leave a child in the vehicle but the only people that leave children in vehicles are crack heads and people who do it on purpose. You know who isn't going to.give a shit about the alert? Crackheads and people who do it on purpose and.the rest of us bare the cost".



If the mother had been a responsible parent the child would not have had access to the firearm but it's way easier to.go after the inanimate object than calling this lady a POS.
 
No state permit is required to purchase a handgun in Louisiana.

*From a private individual.​



They still have to fill out the federal form if purchasing it from a dealer.

The federal law​

The Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Federal Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997 makes it illegal for a person who fits into any of the following categories to receive or possess a firearm:
  • Fugitives from justice
  • Persons who are unlawful users of or are addicted to narcotics or any other controlled substances
 
  • Haha
Reactions: RileyHawk
What's your angle here ciggy? Since you always have an angle. Should we ban guns...or...toddlers?
 
I'm reminded of a recent Bill Maher line that went somwthing like (paraphrasing) "we can put a safety device in a car that alerts you if it is too hot to.leave a child in the vehicle but the only people that leave children in vehicles are crack heads and people who do it on purpose. You know who isn't going to.give a shit about the alert? Crackheads and people who do it on purpose and.the rest of us bare the cost".



If the mother had been a responsible parent the child would not have had access to the firearm but it's way easier to.go after the inanimate object than calling this lady a POS.

Your sarcasm detector is broken beyond repair.
 
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Reactions: cigaretteman
Gonna go out on a limb and guess she lied on the "do you use illegal substances" portion of her application when she bought this firearm.

No need to go out on a limb if you're willing to just read the OP. The gun belongs to the father, the mother wasn't aware that it was in the car.

I do realize reading isn't nearly as cool as gun are though.
 
The US would then say weed is nazist and ban it for life.
Phuuuuuuuuuuckkkk.


Ok...OK.... alternative universe #2.



Hitlers mom pokes a bunch of smot...... Hitler finds out those greasy Jews love the cannabis...... Hitler falls in love with a hairy armpitted Jewish girl... Iowa wins the 85 rose bowl..
.
 
And a blend of reggae and polka emerges causing the Beatles to have afros, steel drums, and Hitler staches.
Yes.... Yes....Jon Lennon...... then skips town the night before he was originally going to meet YOKO......where he then heads to Jamaica for a collaboration with Peter tosh and meets the new love of his life Wanda..... Wanda, a local nurse infatuated with feet, gets super high with the new love of her life and his buddy BOB where she notices Bob has this nasty thing on his toe and under the influence of HEAVY THC cuts the skin from bobs toe for further examination.



There it is folks.... If hitlers mom would have been blazing that sticky icky we would have Jon Lennon and Bob Marley and no one would know yoko.
 
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