“I know this sounds horrible, but do you know how hard it is not to have ill feelings toward a kid? How hard it is not to be upset at Jaxon? Do you know how hard it is?” she had asked the night before. “I have no one to blame. I can’t blame my kid. I can’t blame God because it’s inappropriate. I have nobody to blame. I have no outlet as far as taking out my anger, so I use my family and my fiance as a punching bag.”
In the car now, she turns the volume up so loud that conversation with her boyfriend becomes impossible. She grips the wheel tightly, looks straight ahead and mouths the words of a song as she steers a car that has, among other things, a loaded gun in the glove box. It’s a 9mm — the same caliber that killed Kimi — but while her anger bothers her, guns don’t. She doesn’t feel nervous around that gun or any other gun. She’s more scared of not having one. She still has a child to raise, and what if there’s an intruder, and that intruder has a gun, and she doesn’t? How would she recover from that? How could she live knowing she could have protected Jaxon but had decided she was too afraid to have a gun?
Jesus, how do you go through an experience like that and still maintain the same attitude and behaviour? They haven’t changed a thing, they’ve still got guns lying around the house.
I have no one to blame. I can’t blame my kid. I can’t blame God because it’s inappropriate. I have nobody to blame.
Should be very obvious to blame the person who left a loaded fucking gun in reach of a toddler…
What are you, some kind of librul?
Yeah, seriously, my kid killing my other kid is just a sacrifice that I’m willing to make to stroke my gun boner. /S
The only protection against bad toddlers with guns are good toddlers with guns!
What if I weld a gun to a gun with 666 engraved on it? Is it now a bad gun with a gun? Do we now need good guns with guns to stop these bad guns with guns?
Obviously. The solution is always more guns.
I’m sure the answer is yes.
If the other kid had been armed this terrible thing couldn’t have happened! Arm the kids! /s
I guess Some people’s gun boners are so strong they’re like heroin.
Yeah what self respecting conservative takes responsibility for their own actions? Not a single one.
Joel, the great-grandfather who left the gun out, lives at the base of a small hill in a quiet three-bedroom house. “It’s always quiet here,” he says one afternoon, … There are so many things he could be doing. The pool and garage need cleaning. He has a treadmill he doesn’t use. And a work shed where he has assembled thousands of bullets and where he would like to assemble thousands more. He loves guns so much he sometimes falls asleep thinking of them. But then it’s morning again, and he’s walking past the room where it happened, past all the pictures of Kimi, and sitting on the couch where the thoughts start over again. Was the trigger defective? How much pressure did it take to pull it? How could a little boy have fired a 9mm pistol?
The whole article is a nice read, and every paragraph reinforces the thesis of the piece: that family is fucked-up
That’s the most horrific thing: fucked up but profoundly unremarkable as far as local standards seem to go. It’s not a crime… it’s an accident…oh well. Just another standard family with a standard relationship to guns… By local standards.
Fucked. Up.
They’re experiencing a fundamental cognitive dissonance. Their life-long proximity to their weapons has inculcated them with the belief that the weapons are safe and keep them safe. The horror that a family member could be irreversibly un-alived by the weapon is anathema to that “safe” belief they have. Frankly, it’s preventing them from properly grieving and living their lives.
It certainly helps to explain why there’s significant push-back to common-sense gun control - some Americans experience profound reliance on the presence of a weapon to feel a “normal” sense of security and well-being. It’s tragic, and there’s no easy way to interrupt the establishment of that totemic objectification of weapons.
Edit to add relevant quote from the piece:
…she steers a car that has, among other things, a loaded gun in the glove box. It’s a 9mm — the same caliber that killed Kimi — but while her anger bothers her, guns don’t. She doesn’t feel nervous around that gun or any other gun. She’s more scared of not having one. She still has a child to raise, and what if there’s an intruder, and that intruder has a gun, and she doesn’t? How would she recover from that? How could she live knowing she could have protected Jaxon but had decided she was too afraid to have a gun?
Thank you for teaching me the word inculcate!
I think you’re absolutely right about how entrenched the gun=safety belief is. It’s essentially a religious thought. How do you convince someone their religion is wrong?
It’s so quiet that I needed to leave a gun just lying around…
“moron refuses to take responsibility for killing own child”
She wasn’t the one who left the gun in the car.
The toddler will grow up, find out he killed his sister and then find articles about the mother who didn’t blame the grandfather, who left the loaded gun. Lovely family.
I doubt the kid’s gonna forget, the mum doesn’t seem able to let it go.
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How could she live knowing she could have protected Jaxon but had decided she was too afraid to have a gun?>
It doesn’t sound like she’s living well knowing she could have protected Kimi but had decided she was too afraid to not have a loaded and ready to fire gun.
She’s blaming the kid instead of herself or her husband.
The kid didn’t place a loaded gun in the car.
I’m having trouble understanding the purpose of this clarification. I don’t think anything I said disagrees with anything you said.
It’s not a clarification, it’s an addendum. I didn’t disagree, but thought it makes your point even more wild that she would only have troubles not blaming her child and god, instead of looking at her own fault. (to the work out the guilt with a therapist. It’s still a tragedy)
“I know this sounds horrible, but do you know how hard it is not to have ill feelings toward a kid? How hard it is not to be upset at Jaxon? Do you know how hard it is?”
It should really not be hard at all. As a matter of fact it shouldn’t even cross your mind. Your father killed your daughter by negligence. Be mad at him. Be mad at your boyfriend who leaves a loaded gun in his car door. And be mad at yourself for being that much of an ammosexual you’d rather blame you toddler for killing his sister than admit you might have a gun problem in your goddamn family.
I know CPS sucks in the USA but nonetheless I hope CPS monitors how things are going with Jaxon and his nutcase of a mom.
Blame your fucking self cuz it’s your fault you ignorant bitch.
Ah yes, natural selection in action. Cleanse the gene pool of this woman’s stupidity.
A toddler died.
Actually, the 9-year old sister of the toddler died. But the toddler is probably dead inside from having batshit crazy for a mom so you’re technically correct too :>
Eugenics hasnt been cool for quite some time dude
