"What Were You Thinking?"

Normally, when horrible things happen to children because their parents made a mistake, my empathy for the parents can overwhelm me for days. Left your child in a hot car all day? - well, honestly, it could happen to anyone, meaning, OH MY GOD IT COULD HAPPEN TO ME. Those parents have to feel so awful, and their lives are changed forever and it's because of a mistake they made. "What were you thinking?" is something that would never come out of my mouth.

Yesterday though, I read this article about an 8 year old boy, whose father (a doctor) took him to a gun show that had a firing range, and with an instructor standing there, the boy held an uzi, aimed at a pumpkin and it recoiled so strongly (as Uzi's will do), and fatally shot the child in the head.

Hunting, somehow I get it. I don't agree with it, but I understand the tradition of "menfolk". And while I will never have a firearm in my home while I have children, and JH will NEVER be allowed to go into a home that has guns, I don't want to take away anyone else's right to own them.

But automatic weapons? They are not for sport. They should be outlawed. There is no reason for them other than to kill people. You don't hunt with an Uzi. Any rational sporting male will tell you this.

And so I can't get this thought to go away, no matter how much sympathy I feel for his parents:

"What were you thinking?"