Detroit DA Going After Parents of Kids Involved in Gun Accidents

A Detroit district attorney named Kym Worthy is on a campaign to prosecute parents whose kids die in accidental shootings because they accessed a gun in the home or car. She believes accidental shootings like this are a punishable crime. We agree.

In Detroit, over the span of about two years, accidental shootings have left nearly 20 children seriously injured or dead. According to a report by the Associated Press, a child under 12 dies from a gun accident once a week on average. Sometimes, the adults are deemed negligent and sometimes they aren’t.

Michigan, where Worthy is from, does not specifically have a law allowing for criminal charges against an adult based on how they store their guns when a child is involved in an accident with said guns. But Worthy uses other laws to hold parents accountable. One of the horrible examples given in this article by The Trace is that of a 10-year-old girl who was said to be mimicking a video game when she shot and killed her 9-year-old brother with a loaded shotgun which was left unattended. She references this case later in the article by saying that the loaded gun was left on top of the Xbox console in a home where children regularly played video games. The father in that case received a 52-year-sentence.

The article I linked to has an interview with Worthy where she answers questions about what kind of cases she feels it’s appropriate to bring criminal charges in to the mix for. She does make it clear that she’s not prosecuting parents who lock their guns up and the kids find out where the guns are and try to get to it.

She’s pursuing the truly, what seems like obviously, negligent parents who do not properly store their guns. Parents who leave loaded guns in their car glove box or console. when they regularly have kids in the car. Parents who leave a loaded gun near their bed, in a home where they knowingly have children playing on a regular basis. She says, “Those who show complete irresponsibility and, as a result, someone’s dead.”

What can you do to prevent accidental shootings? Follow safe storage laws if they exist in your community. If not, and you have children in the home, this pro-gun site, AmericanConcealed.com, has a lot of recommendations for safe gun storage. Start there, or look up your own resources.