Dad accidentally shots 7 year old son

[Sprightly]

I wonder if he'll be prosecuted? On one hand, nothing worse can happen to him. On the other, if I ran over this kid driving wrecklessly I assume I would be charged with a crime. Sad.

I doubt it. My ex-husband's best friend was backing out of his driveway and ran over his two year old niece. I knew the family well enough to have vacationed in Disney World with them. No, he wasn't drinking, wasn't even backing out fast and, since there were always family kids playing the driveway, he had even checked to make sure that the kids had scattered. He never recovered from it. Twenty years later he took his life. His punishment was worse than the legal system could impose on him.

[pepper]

"Most liberals" aren't poor, black, or ghetto-residents. The gun violence of young, poor black men shooting each other can be mentally compartmentalized as something that's of another world. I've lived in Baltimore essentially all my life (60+ years), but I've never seen, heard, or been affected by the city's notorious gun-violence and murder rate. If I were to be shot, it would as likely be by a "law-abiding" white person and by accident.

You really believe you're not affected by the city's gun violence?

You pay taxes right? The terrible violence has a ripple effect that goes way beyond the corner. It obviously takes a toll on the tax base, as it drives decent people out, (if they can escape) while folks like yourself (and every other taxpayer in the state) takes up the slack.

I don't know where in Baltimore you live, but my guess is that you're financially able to insulate yourself from the carnage, neighborhood wise, if in 60 years you have never seen or heard anything.

In your 60 years, a conservative estimate of 200 killed a year means about 12,000 people have been killed in your time here. To compartmentalize that would require several large containers.

[pepper]

Avoiding all the politics and finger wagging, this truly is a heart breaking story.

Really. Can you imagine something worse than killing your own son? My guess is that the 7 year old was dads little buddy...the family is now in ruins and it will never fully recover. Imagine being that guy...

[regularguy]

In your 60 years, a conservative estimate of 200 killed a year means about 12,000 people have been killed in your time here. To compartmentalize that would require several large containers.

I currently live just-north of the city line, in the county.

It's no more difficult for me to compartmentalize the gun violence among Baltimore's drug dealers than it is to compartmentalize the 3,000 drug-related murders a year in Juarez, Mexico.

[pepper]

I currently live just-north of the city line, in the county.

It's no more difficult for me to compartmentalize the gun violence among Baltimore's drug dealers than it is to compartmentalize the 3,000 drug-related murders a year in Juarez, Mexico.

But the fact that you (and myself, admittedly) can pretty much mentally ignore stuff that does not immediately and directly affect us does not lessen the overall impact. It just allows us to sleep better.

And of course, being Mexico's relief valve, we are also affected by those killings in Juarez.

You and I are at an age where we will not see the end results, but it should be very interesting for our grandkids and their children..