It’s front-page news,and it’s hard to read. A woman and her unborn child are killed by a gun shot. An accidental, tragic gun shot. Ultimately, the judicial system will determine whether the accident also involved recklessness and/or negligence.
That’s not for us to judge. But it is for us to societally reflect upon. Whatever the legal upshot, a gun culture killed two innocents.
The victim, Katherine Hoover, and her husband were visiting a friend in his Brooksville home. According the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, the friend showed the couple his guns, including a .22-caliber revolver. The gun somehow fired. Tragedy resulted.
This is not the forum to ponder the Second Amendment’s militia context or the NRA’s gun-rights veneration. We’re not talking self-defense. We’re talking self-preservation and common sense.
How much better off would the Hoovers have been if that friend had simply said: “Hey, let me show you my sister’s wedding album”? Or “Care to see my stamp collection or my vintage divers helmet inkwell?” Anything. Even “Let me get my AuH2o bumper sticker and my DVDs of Shane and High Noon. Anything.
But “Let me show you my guns”? Anything but that.
Technically, Katherine Hooper and her unborn child were killed in a tragic accident. But they were the victims of a culture. And cultures are not accidents.