5-Year Old Fatally Shoots Sister With His Shiny New Rifle; Grandma Says It Was ‘God’s Will’
Mom stepped out for a moment, leaving her 5-year-0ld to play with his birthday present–a .22 cal. rifle. While Mom was out, the child shot his 2-year-old sister, Caroline Sparks.
He added that in the area it is not uncommon for parents to give their young children weapons. “In this part of the country, it’s not uncommon for a 5-year-old to have a gun or for a parent to pass one down to their kid,” he said.
The rifle that killed Caroline Sparks is a Crickett single-shot, and has a child safety, according to Cumberland County Coroner Gary White. The company’s web site features three .22-caliber rifle models for children and the slogan, “My first rifle.”
The family, while upset, is happy that little Caroline is in a “better place.”
“It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess,” grandmother Linda Riddle told WLEX. “I just know she’s in heaven right now and I know she’s in good hands with the Lord.”
kerryberger June 27th, 2014 at 5:28 pm
No one in their right mind gives a 5 year old a weapon and allows the child to go shooting without parental supervision. This is an unconscionable act of child negligence on the part of the parents and grand parents. I wouldn’t even give my child a BB gun at age five. That’s just too young. To say this was God’s Will is nonsense.
R.J. Carter June 27th, 2014 at 5:33 pm
Couldn’t agree more. Are there five year olds with guns out there? Yeah — and they shoot with a parent and then the gun is put away. Telling them to take their gun out back and go play is the height of parental abdication.
BanditBasheert June 27th, 2014 at 6:06 pm
“no one in their right mind gives a 5 year old a weapon”
You got it.
bhil June 27th, 2014 at 7:17 pm
Yea I’m nervous and feel guilty so I’ll blame it on God the absentee deity, so very convenient. How does that work in court?
Obewon June 27th, 2014 at 6:04 pm
I thought kids wanted a first bike. Instead his 5th birthday wish was ‘My first Homicide.’ The rifle that “Accidentally” killed 2 year old toddler Caroline Sparks is a Crickett single-shot, and has a child safety, according to Kentucky’s Cumberland County Coroner Gary White. The company’s web site features three .22-caliber rifle models for children and the slogan. http://www.crickett.com/ Guns shoot and kill 22-43 times more friends and family than any intruder says CDC & FBI.
labman57 June 27th, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Yet another self-serving so-called Christian attempts to use religious dogma as a “get out of jail” card so that she doesn’t have to accept responsibility for her own errors in judgement.
Why is it that so many Christian conservative extremists suggest that God is a deity who not only is a mean-spirited, Machiavellian, vindictive, micro-manager in desperate need of anger management, but also one who lacks the compassion to worry about the collateral damage done to the innocent?
fahvel June 28th, 2014 at 4:21 am
because that is exactly what that god is – check out its work, see all the wondrous things its done – continents soaked in blood solely to arrive at a market economy that reduces the value of individual lives to less than a cypher.
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:45 am
I’ve noticed that “gods” will pretty much say and do whatever their inventors want them to.
Um Cara June 27th, 2014 at 7:06 pm
So guns don’t kill people, God does? I suppose there are lots of folks in prison who might like the opportunity to test out that defense…
Joey Tranchina June 27th, 2014 at 9:38 pm
We’ll make the bumper sticker:
GOD IS MY CO-DEFENDANT
bhil June 27th, 2014 at 7:14 pm
“God’s Will” What the Bleep does she know about God?
Carla Akins June 27th, 2014 at 7:15 pm
I’m certain the family will tell themselves whatever they need to, in order to survive this tragedy – and I fully understand that it’s a coping mechanism. However, I’m afraid this attitude also allows the rest of the community to treat it lightly, thinking they don’t need to reconsider how their approach to firearms.
Yes, I know there are very responsible gun owner’s and parents, but these days I’m not sure they are still the majority. Societal pressures to keep up with the Jones and provide your children with the same things their peers have is a very real thing. These folks are the same ones that not only shouldn’t own adult firearms but are also supplying their children.
fantagor June 27th, 2014 at 11:15 pm
Hey, I’m early to the merge party. Where should I stash my bong?
Carla Akins June 28th, 2014 at 5:47 am
Stash hell, pass it over here.
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:43 am
Stash? Hell–wake and bake! I’ve got the cookies!
m2old4bs June 29th, 2014 at 1:06 am
Yeah, share it now … although I’m a day late, and of course a dollar short.
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:42 am
They won’t learn anything by making it all a “god’s will–nothing we could have done about it” situation. If there IS indeed a “god”, that god should be kicking their asses.
Carla Akins June 28th, 2014 at 11:53 am
Exactly. I’m not saying the parents should be vilified, but they should be held responsible. It was irresponsible behavior and poor parenting, not god that killed that child.
mea_mark June 27th, 2014 at 7:45 pm
So Grandma’s God is an irresponsible idiot? Who wants to have a God like that?
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:40 am
Let alone let them babysit.
Gale Abernathy June 27th, 2014 at 7:52 pm
Didn’t this happen several months ago?
Obewon June 27th, 2014 at 8:29 pm
Crickett initially deleted their ‘my first gun’ homicide, aimed at kids website. But now it’s back just in time for summer & holiday seasons! http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/company-selling-my-first-rifle-deletes-website-after-5-year
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:40 am
Woo Hoo–and the 4th of July just around the corner…
jasperjava June 28th, 2014 at 7:04 am
Seems to happen on a weekly basis, if not more frequently.
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:39 am
It–or something like it–happens at least every day. We’d know exactly, but the NRA and their minions in Congress won’t let the CDC study the number of gun deaths in this country. It has become a health issue.
Joey Tranchina June 27th, 2014 at 9:34 pm
I grew up on a ranch. I’ve been around guns all my life.
That’s nuts. There is no excuse for that irresponsibility.
Whoever was taking care of those children belongs in jail.
The NRA should sue these people for damaging their image, that is,
if they cared what anyone — other than gun manufacturers — thought of them.
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:37 am
If the NRA even brings it up, they’ll apologize for mentioning it the next day. I guess they’re afraid of masses of people with guns getting angry at them.
fantagor June 27th, 2014 at 11:14 pm
The world was much safer when Cricket was a brand of lighters.
mmaynard119 June 28th, 2014 at 9:03 am
When Cricket sang at the Shell Bar.
mmaynard119 June 28th, 2014 at 9:04 am
When Cricket sang “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide”.
Mcdojr June 28th, 2014 at 12:43 am
Where’s the county attorney with child endangerment charges?
m2old4bs June 29th, 2014 at 1:02 am
Seriously, that’s what I would like to know as well. But of course, that won’t be happening as the thought is that the family has already suffered enough due to this “accident.” I absolutely hate stories like this, and the dismissive nature that no one is at fault for the death of a child. Responsible gun owners, my ass.
loder74 June 28th, 2014 at 4:32 am
Whatever makes granny feel better about her complicity in the senseless death of this child.
Maxx44 June 28th, 2014 at 7:44 am
“God’s will” is the new temporary insanity defense.
Shades June 28th, 2014 at 8:00 am
If your god wills a child to be killed by a family member (or anyone for that matter) not to mention beaten, raped, starved, etc, why is he your god?
Camelot June 28th, 2014 at 8:36 am
Thank you! Well put!
Amanda June 28th, 2014 at 8:39 am
Very well put
LynnTTTT June 28th, 2014 at 9:31 am
If the little girl had been kidnapped, raped and murdered by a black guy, do you think the family would have been equally complacent?
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:34 am
I doubt that granny would have called it “god’s will”…
LynnTTTT June 28th, 2014 at 9:33 am
Join us :
momsdemandaction.org
M D Reese June 28th, 2014 at 11:34 am
“God’s will”? That sounds like motive to me. How about we haul this god’s ass in for questioning? Seriously–I’m stunned by the stupid.
Jeffrey Samuels June 28th, 2014 at 6:16 pm
what state was this in? I want to make sure I avoid it.
Dang! I would have thought Texas
Bradleecross Richmond June 28th, 2014 at 8:56 pm
So it was god’s will for you to buy a 22caliber riffle and ammo then load it and give it to a 5y/o child then let him go off unsupervised with it to play with his baby sister? You can’t put that on god! He gave you free will and theirs that little thing called common sense You know maybe I could see getting him the gun for his maybe 8th or 9th birthday. But to buy bullets for it and loading it for him NO! Not until the child can and has a full understanding of the consequences of aiming at anyone or thing living and what will be the outcome of firing!
justice4rall June 28th, 2014 at 8:57 pm
God tole me to tell you , grandma , to stop LYING on him!!!!!
Sunks June 28th, 2014 at 10:47 pm
When this 5 yr old becomes old enough to comprehend that he shot and killed his sister because his dumb parents gave him a loaded gun to play with what do you suppose he’ll say to them? Somehow I doubt the “God’s will” story will hold much comfort for him.
JamesMMartin June 28th, 2014 at 11:35 pm
This points up the absurdity of belief in a superior being. If God were all powerful and good, that child would not have been shot. How ridiculous can you get that you thank God for taking a two year old child so that she can be with Him in heaven! This is the equivalent of believers saying, “God works in mysterious ways.” What actually happened is that someone bought a rifle, kept it loaded, kept it unlocked and enabled the boy to kill his sister. God had nothing to do with it. There is no god but Man.
PsychoChick966 June 29th, 2014 at 2:21 am
Ahh, adults believing in magic.
Scott Amundsen June 29th, 2014 at 12:33 pm
No, Grandma, it was not “God’s will,” any more than it was “God’s will” that the kid’s idiot parents gave him a “shiny new rifle” at the age of five.
#idiots
Tex June 29th, 2014 at 1:39 pm
“God’s will” that a child should be murdered? Never expected to see a quote like that outside of the Onion.
Silvia Planchett June 29th, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Typical uneducated bible totin’ white trash!
Lease Lev June 29th, 2014 at 3:56 pm
How about negligent homicide?
cecilia June 29th, 2014 at 10:36 pm
why do stupid people HAVE to have children?
Yeah way June 29th, 2014 at 10:38 pm
Careless handling of a firearm: to leave it with a tiny child like that.
5 is not old enough even for an air gun, let alone something lethal like a .22.
Try airsoft, if you MUST see your post-toddler child holding a gun.
Otherwise, 11,12,13 – when the little person is able to comprehend the consequences of an unintentional discharge – is about the right time to let them learn to shoot…under supervision, of course.
Margie Bateman Osgood June 30th, 2014 at 1:23 pm
What I want to know is why the damn thing was loaded if she “stepped out for a moment and let the child play with it” ?
LightningJoe July 1st, 2014 at 10:51 am
Now this five year old is going to have to life with two things in his brain that really don’t belong there. One, is the knowledge that he killed his little sister. The other is the idea that God INTENDED him to do it…
I can’t even guess where that will lead him, but it won’t be anywhere pleasant…
redastcyr July 1st, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Oh so mom an dad are happy she’s in a better place OMG
tmf_x July 7th, 2014 at 1:23 pm
There is no excuse for that level of a parenting fail. Giving a 5 year old a loaded weapon unsupervised is utterly idiotic.