WCNC, Charlotte: A Cleveland County man was shot and killed by his 11-year-old step-daughter Friday in what the sheriff is calling a “tragic accident.”"To see how this can affect a child," said Norman, "and you don’t know what adverse effect it’s going to have on that child later in life."
Bryan Scott Reno, 19, died late Friday night while showing a gun he had just purchased to his step-daughter. The girl’s mother had gone to bed.
According to Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman, Reno had removed the clip from the .380 caliber handgun before handing it to his step-daughter, who was not named. The gun fired while the girl was holding it, hitting and killing Reno.
Sheriff Norman said at a press conference Saturday that the tragedy affects the whole community, especially the little girl.
You have to be careful with guns, you have to teach kids, to respect, you have to blah blah blah, wank ,wank, wank… All that sort of talk does is make people who have guns and kids feel better about having guns and kids. It does nothing to prevent these sorts of tragedies, as we see over and over and over. People will be dumb. People will make mistakes. And with firearms, the margin for error is extremely slim.
[The family’s landlord] called the shooting a terrible accident, but added that she had grandchildren at her house and doesn’t own a gun because she’s afraid of something like this happening.Who kept their family safer — the family with the .38 or the grandma with no guns at all?
“Babies don’t understand,” she said. “Even a child who’s 11 years old didn’t understand, apparently.”
[photo via Wikimedia Commons]
