Questions About Child Shooting Mother

Obviously the story of the 2-year old who accidentally shot his mother at a Walmart store when he obtained her gun and it accidentally fired, killing her, is a tragic one. As is always the case in situations like this, the gun control people tend to come out of the woodwork if for no other reason than to shout as loud as they can I told you so. Guns are dangerous and should be banned.

I do not advocate for gun control laws, and certainly do not advocate for barring responsible citizens from carrying legally obtained weapons. But that's another story.

There are a couple of questions that come to mind, for me, as I think about the tragic events that unfolded in this case. For one, what was the mother doing, and for what length of time was she doing it, that the child could have had time to, unnoticed, reach for and fumble inside the purse to get hold of the gun?

My second question is why was the gun safety not on? Surely, despite the gun getting into the hands of the 2-year old, whatever was going on that the mom was so distracted not to notice, it would not have gone off.

Thirdly, why would any responsible gun owner not only leave a purse with a loaded gun in a shopping cart with a child? More importantly, why would you leave your purse unattended? It was obviously unattended long enough that she didn't even have a watch on her child that he was able to get the gun in the first place. Who else could have gotten that gun?

How many people have their purse's stolen?

I am not going to come right out and make any accusations as to the mother as I simply do not know all of the facts in the case. But certainly I think (and hope) that further investigation is ongoing to determine what exactly the mother was doing at the time the shooting occurred, and how long the child was unattended before the shot went off?

There is more to this story, I think, than just an accidental shooting.