A while ago (2 Oct 07 to be precise), I wrote a post about how the weird idea people have that being armed is a “good thing” (for whatever reason) had led to the death of a young girl and the destruction of a family – she was killed by her brother, playing with his mother’s illegally owned revolver. (Post was titled “One Bullet Destroys Three Lives.”)

Today I have a comment from someone calling themselves Logic. Although I want to respond to the comment, I can’t really do it justice by simply responding with a comment, so I thought I would repost the comment and address it here. Here we go.

does any one know what a .38 revolver looks like,…. i do, and if you dont then a quick search on the net will show you pictures,

Its ok, I know what a .38 revolver looks like. You may be thinking they all look the same, but they don’t. There are similarities, however if you do not know what you are looking for it is easy to make mistakes.

the POINT is ,,,.. Kasha Peniston (the brother) must of knew it was loaded as you can SEE the bullets, he should of got more then 2yrs he should of got 5years in time, no less,

You are assuming a few things here. First off, if it was a .38 special style revolver (the one on the right above), then yes it is possible to see the brass ends of the rounds in the cylinder. However, this assumes the person knows enough to look. If the brother was, as claimed, simply playing with this as a toy, then it is unlikely he thought enough to check the cylinder to see if there were bullets in place. Even trained people make mistakes about the state of a weapon, so it is a bit comical to assume a teenager will be thoughtful and thorough enough to carry out normal safety precautions.

Secondly, what difference would the extra 3 years on his sentence have made? I suspect you have picked a completely arbitrary sentence and decided that would be more suitable. His family is destroyed. 5 years or 50 years is not going to change that. If we accept the courts findings that this crime was not malicious, then what are you seeking to punish here?

Sad, and traumatic, that this event might be, the boy still basically had an accident while playing. Because his mother (for whatever reason) had a loaded weapon in the house, the accident didn’t result in something trivial like a cut arm but the death of his sister. Punishing the boy will not deter this from happening again. His life is already destroyed, so why add to the suffering?

he’ll do 1yr and get out on bing the idol inmate, (aka good boy) either way he will be out by age 19,

So what? Are you saying that rewarding inmates who show good behaviour with reduced sentences is a bad thing? What do you think the purpose of prison is? If, as I thought, Prison is there to rehabilitate offenders then rewarding good behaviour is the right thing to do.

Also, why do you have a problem with him getting out by the age of 19? Would you rather he spent longer in jail, became a hardened criminal and then spent what remains of his life damaging society?

and the sotry reads ….the mother went to london for the weekend etc etc, and told the Boy where the gun was,.. he inturn got the gun and MUST of knew it was loaded but still played around with it,

Again, so what? The case reporting never disputed that the boy was playing with the weapon. He admitted to shooting his sister. You are basing all this on the assumption the boy had looked to see if the weapon was loaded.

Now the mother is trying to pin it on the so called bad boy image boy friend,

Once more, this cries out “so what?” In the original post, I was pointing out the flaw in the idea that people being armed / carrying weapons at home made things safer. I highlighted this was a situation which had totally stemmed from the mothers insane idea that having a gun in the house was sensible.

I am, totally, at a loss as to the point you are trying to make here.

this blog is a load of sh!t,.. if your going to tell the story tell it how it is.,,.. not bits a bats,

Well, thanks for taking the time to comment when you have such a low opinion of the blog. What part of the story do you feel was missed out? The post you have commented on was not a “news report,” it was an analysis of how the tragedy had come about, especially in light of recent jingoistic claims by various politicians.

and if you block the comment,. atleast u know ur talkin crap

Great. I didn’t block it. As you can see, I rarely talk crap and this certainly wasn’t one of those times. In a similar vein of human charity, I will point out that I suspect you are simply doing a drive by trolling. If you don’t come back and elaborate, at least you know you are talking crap.