How many babes have felt the touch of your warm and gentle hands, how many babes from near and far, and many foreign lands. How many babes have gone to sleep as you coo a soothing song, and stroked their tiny finger tips, How many soothing songs, how many tears have you shed through many sleepless nights, and how many babes have dropped off to slumber safely in their bed. How many moms now hold their babes , and do a victory dance, because you cared to help a babe that barely had a chance. If heaven is really where Angels live, then the 'Preemie ward' is where they train, to do their caring things, and I know for sure, without a doubt, they've reserved your Angel Wings. ;) ;) BuddyBlack 2016
JUST to prove that a 'religious', homophobic, intolerant, religious radical, narrow minded tunnel visioned bible thumping 'apple' does not fall far from its 'parent' tree, Anne Graham, the unfortunate daughter of God's BFF Billyboy multiMillionaire Graham, has discovered Why ISIS and Other misguided terriorists seem to dislike American infifels so much. Holding her 'scientific' guidebook with her blinged jewel incrusted hand she explains that; “Our nation seems to be shaking its fist in God’s face and telling him to get out of our politics, get out of our schools, get out of our businesses, get out of our marketplace, get off the streets,” she told conservative radio host Steve Deace, according to audio posted online by Right Wing Watch. “It’s just stunning to me the way we are basically abandoning God as a culture and as a nation.” When that happens, “God abandons us and he backs away and takes his hand of favor, blessings, His hand of protection away from us and he abandons us,” she said. She also said that; "Terror attacks such as 9/11 and the mass shooting in San Bernardino were allowed by God because of the gay rights movement and the acceptance of evolution". Now even her own daddy, who actually Invented the Bible that she so proudly thumps, not to mention the multi-billion dollar Billy Graham orginization built from the money of their 'fear of doomsday' followers, couldn't have proclaimed it better. Her God has called a Fatwa down on America and any Other country that shuns the 'proper' religion, and he has 'hired' ISIS and their minions to do his dirty work for him. Yikes! :O 'Yea tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me', ....ahhh... that is unless you believe in evolution, are non religious, gay, non repentive, a person who uses their Own brain and common sense, does not tithe your 'fair share', refuses to be a good sheep', and, well, the list just goes on and on. Just when they would have us believe that God is such a loving, tolerant, un-biased 'benevolent' savior of all mankind, Ms. 'kill'em with kindness' Graham cracks open her 'guidebook', which only a True Ordained Disciple of God can decipher, interpret, and self translate, and shows us what it's Really all about. Incredibly, it would appear that from her very own proclamation, that ISIS and those other 'religious' fanatical murdering scum do not hold a candle to God himself when it comes to killing innocent lives and creating mayhem in general. She also claimed ; "..that God would protect Americans from everything, including terrorists and hurricanes, if they repent and pray". You might make note of that little 'IF' word there. It looks like New Orleans was chock full of sinners when that spiffy God Ordered hurricane pratically wiped it off the map. 'Vengence is mine....'. It might be a little more than coincidental that ISIS uses this same 'ploy' in their attempts to convert folks to believe in, and follow, their own religious fanaticalism. It's simple, Convert, or die! It seems she's 'preaching to the choir', and just 'calling the kettle black'. And not to be outdone with her First doomsday exclamations she also issued a dire warning, implying that God could send more terror — or something worse. What!? We haven't 'seen' the 'Worst' yet?? “If 9/11 didn’t turn us to prayer like that, if San Bernardino doesn’t, it almost frightens me to think what would it take to make us so desperate that we’ll cry out to God and we’ll get on our face and repent,” she said. Holy cows! OMG!! You mean he could do Worse Things!? It seems that ISIS uses a similiar tact when 'asking' folks to convert. By the proper use of threats, and torture, only the very strong and foolish would resist and gladly fall onto their faces to ask forgiveness. But usually they just get killed anyway, and if you just happen to be an 'infidel', they will 'toast' you right away, no matter What you do. But, they can do this as they have been 'allowed', and even encourged, to do it by God himself, to teach heathons like us a lesson we won't soon forget. Thanks a Lot Ms. Graham. :/ When it comes to her resistance to believing in 'evolution' she has obviously failed to perform even a cursory examination of her Own family 'apple' tree, which had she done so she would readily see that 'evolution' has been, and still Is, busy in her own genes Even as she protests the very existence of it. And so, as Ms. 'Gods right hand' Graham hops onto her private jet with her bodyguards to whisk her away to one of her private retreats built with 'scared' money, Her world and all her Bling is just as safe as she can buy it, leaving the rest of the world to flounder at the hands of the mighty avenger, repent or face doom you groveling infidels and non believers alike, so sayeth Gods hand picked emissaries The Graham family, who while they pick your pocket via the collection plate, they'll promise to save your sorry heathen souls. That is, as long as you do a little groveling and a Lot of repenting. ;) ;)
Anne Graham Lotz Says God Sends Terror Attacks Because Of Bathroom Rights And Evolution
Anne Graham Lotz, seen here in a 2007 file photo, claims God allows terror attacks “to show us that we need hm.”
Terror attacks such as 9/11 and the mass shooting in San Bernardino were allowed by God because of the gay rights movement and the acceptance of evolution, evangelist Anne Graham Lotz said.
“Our nation seems to be shaking its fist in God’s face and telling him to get out of our politics, get out of our schools, get out of our businesses, get out of our marketplace, get off the streets,” Lotz told conservative radio host Steve Deace, according to audio posted online by Right Wing Watch. “It’s just stunning to me the way we are basically abandoning God as a culture and as a nation.”
When that happens, “God abandons us and he backs away and takes his hand of favor, blessings, His hand of protection away from us and he abandons us,” she said.
“We’re struggling with our own pride or self-sufficiency. I think that’s why God allows bad things to happen. I think that’s why he would allow 9/11 to happen, or the dreadful attack in San Bernardino, or some of these other places, to show us that we need him. We’re desperate without him.”
Lotz, the daughter of famed evangelist Billy Graham and leader of AnGeL Ministries in North Carolina, also complained about HB2, the state’s transphobic law which bars transgender people from using the public restrooms that match the gender they identify with.
“There’s silliness. There’s craziness. There’s most illogical rulings,” she said. “The Justice Department is suing us for something that is just common sense. It’s ludicrous, and to me it’s evidence that God has backed away.”
Lotz then claimed that God would protect Americans from everything, including terrorists and hurricanes, if they repent and pray. Conveniently, she’s hawking a new book, “The Daniel Prayer,” which claims to have a prayer that can “move heaven and change nations.”
If people pray, she said, God will “begin to reveal the plots of our enemies and terrorists before they are carried out. Even the weather patterns, he can even control the weather patterns and protect us from the violent storms that are taking human life.”
But Lotz also issued a dire warning, implying that God could send more terror — or something worse.
“If 9/11 didn’t turn us to prayer like that, if San Bernardino doesn’t, it almost frightens me to think what would it take to make us so desperate that we’ll cry out to God and we’ll get on our face and repent,” she said.
'Hi Ya'll, this here's your most favorite Governor coming to you from the Alamo, that place what makes us all proud to be Texassan's, which by the way we eventually practically Stole from them darn mexicalis way back when we we could Do that sort of thing, and actually get away with it. But Proud we Are indeed! But I'll tell ya what we ain't even Nearly 'proud' of, and That's being part of that illegal, confounded, United States of America Government! Yep! That we ain't! Here in our grand state of Texass we are proud to be More than them simple minded 'Americans' that like to tax us to death, and tell us what we Can and cannot do around here. We're just Tired of it! Tired! Now me and the boys down at Our Own 'Whitehouse' got together and we done figured out how to get rid of that budybody U.S. Government, and git ourselves free and clear of them once and for all. Hey, we whipped them mexicalis and we can whip those fools up in DC. Here's what we done planned out, and we know our fellow countrymen, and women too if they want to join us, will each and everyone vote for. Here's how it's gonna 'work'; First we all gotta git together with our superior brains which are capable of making real good common sense decisions. Then, when we say, 'who wants to seceed from the union of the United States of America', everyone just raise your hands, well actually, just raising One hand will be good enough, you can keep your other hand on your 'gat's in case we git invaded by them pesky federal storm troopers. Then after we vote on what to do, we need to elect someone to be the king of our new country. I gladly toss my name in the hat for That job, afterall, I've been running the sweet state of Texass just fine, and I Know I can do just as 'good' a job running our new country. Then we gotta figure out a name for our new country. I say we call it 'The Kingdom of Perry', now That has a nice ring to it don't it now. So Then, we'll probably have to git rid of all that useless U.S Government Money floating around. I'm gonna put a great big truck in my backyard where everyone will bring all that dirty useless 'money' that has absolutly No 'value' anymore, and just dump it all in that big truck. Later on, I'll git rid of it, probably just take it way out in the desert somewhere, and just burn it or somethin'. Filthy stuff anyway! Then we'll just make our Own money for use in our new 'Country Of The Kingdom of Perry'. We might have to use sea shells, or cow hides, or shiney rocks which we have pleanty of as 'money' for a while at first, but it'll be worth way more than that sinful stuff packed away in my big truck. We won't need hardly anything from the U.S. 'cause we got our own oil and gas wells, and cows, and cow patties, and horses, and lots of sage brush and dirt. We'll have our own army, and navy, and airforce and stuff like that. We'll build a great big wall all around our new country to keep out those greedy Americans, and them mexicans, and them other foriengers that always cause so much trouble here. We'll put up Toll Plazas on all the roads that lead into our country, and those stupid Americans will have to have a Texass issued passport if they want to step foot into our Country. They can drive through but they can't Live here or stay longer than it takes to get out. All those foriegn countries out there will just be lining up at our border just chomping at the bit to do big commerce business with us! We'll have our own health care system, none of that stupid Obama stuff, we'll git rid of that lazy mans Social Security crap, and food stamps, and, well, all that 'American' stuff. Boy, we have so many 'great' plans for our new country! I just know that every Texassan that loves Texass will vote 'Yes' for our new 'Country'. Our slogan will be 'Remember The Alamo', or somethin' snappy like that, you know, an attention gitter. So everybody head on down to your place of voting and let's gitter done, and lets succeed in seceeding!!' :/
Nationalist Group Wants TX Secession on Primary Ballot
The Texas Nationalist Movement wants the state of Texas to secede from the United States. They have started a petition to get a referendum for secession on the Texas Republican primary ballot on March 1.
Texas already seceded once — in 1861, by popular vote in a statewide election.
But the Texas Nationalist Movement wants a repeat a century and a half later, and thinks the March GOP primary is the place to start.
The Nederland-based Texas independence group is circulating a petition aimed at getting a non-binding vote onto the GOP primary ballot over whether "the state of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation."
Their goal? 75,000 signatures from registered voters by Dec. 1 — more than the 66,894 the Texas Secretary of State's office says the group needs to get the language on the ballot.
Even if the Texas Nationalist Movement gets enough signatures, such a vote would be little more than symbolic. Academics agree that Texas cannot secede from the United States, and point to a post-Civil War Supreme Court ruling, Texas v. White, as evidence.
But that hasn't stopped the Republican Party of Texas from rolling its eyes at the secessionists. Texas GOP communications director Aaron Whitehead said the Republican party certainly doesn't welcome outside groups trying to doctor the party ballot.
“Historically the executive committee of the Republican Party has chosen what goes on this,” Whitehead said, “and it’s party preference that it stays that way.” The Texas Nationalist Movement, which hasn't yet verified how many signatures it has, doesn't buy the argument that the state can't secede. Daniel Miller, the group's president, points to the state Constitution, and in particular, the provision that gives Texans the right to "alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.” Miller said the group is going around the state party because past interactions with the GOP weren't fruitful.
“We have had our hand slapped," Miller said. "We have been rebuffed, and not just us as an organization, but essentially anyone in any position inside the party that has advocated for this position has been rebuffed." Whitehead said there is zero relationship between the GOP and the secessionists, and added that his response to such a ballot proposal would be the same if it were “a resolution giving everybody a unicorn or a resolution for secession.”
If the Texas Nationalist Movement does get the signatures it needs, the Secretary of State's office says it will be the first time a referendum from a citizen group is put on the Republicans’ statewide primary ballot. Miller acknowledges a majority vote for the referendum wouldn't be binding, but hopes it would be enough evidence of support to get state leaders to take the issue seriously long-term.
“The end game for us is to have a binding referendum on Texas independence, much like the people of Scotland had in November of last year,” Miller said. The 2014 vote over Scottish independence from the United Kingdom failed. Volunteers from the Texas Nationalist Movement are at work across the state, scurrying to get signatures. Miller is optimistic; he says the organization itself has over 200,000 members.
“Texas and Washington, D.C. are on very different paths, and the people of Texas obviously recognize that,” he said. “... The Texas Nationalist Movement message has been one not of reaction to grievance but one of a future we can build as an independent nation.”
Maple leaves,
Red, yellow,
Golden Brown,
Are fluttering,
Twirling,
gently falling,
Seeking
Solace
On autumns
Cooling ground.
'Ol Sol
Is slowly
Trudging south,
Seeking warmer
Berth.
He leaves
Behind
Warm autumn
Leaves,
A blanket
For
Their mother Earth.
It appears that the seemingly Homophobic 'good ol' boy' State of North Carolina is trying hard to out-do itself and those Other two states that have also contracted the 'homophobic virus', when it comes to fighting things that go 'bump' in the night, or 'bump' in the bathroom as in This particular case. Running like a herd of hysterical scardy-cats from self induced 'fear' of things that just might not matter, and after collectivly gathering all their grey matter into a common pool, well, Actually just a teaspoon, they have concluded that the female students can carry Pepper Spray to ward off the hoards of Male Students, disguised as females, 'invading' their restrooms. Of course there's no statistical evidence that this has ever occurred in the past but the school board thinks it's good to be 'pepper spray wise' than a pound foolish. Of course these scholors did not address the 'dangers' that the Male Students surely must face Themselves from the hoards of Female Students who no doubt will invade the Boys restroom in like fashion. 'Wisely', the schoolboard told the Male Students to just go ahead and do a little, or whatever it takes, 'homo bashing' first, and ask questions later. When asked about the great possiblility of Injuries and Civil and Criminal Lawsuits resulting from students blasting one another with school sanctioned pepper spray, their collective heads spun like so many little whirrlyjigs until they all just fell right over from the act of having to use actual common sense for a change. Drooling Civil Rights, and Criminal Trial Lawyers were seen jostling one another at the front door of the school tossing their business cards like confitti. Rumor has it that the students will soon be allowed to bring their 'personal use' firearms, as well as their Pittbull 'service' dogs onto campus just in the event that pepper spray proves ineffective. At one time, just When that Was has been lost in time, the sticky tar heeled state 'appeared' to be moving right into the 21st century, that is until that states learned governor decided that he, and he alone, and Now with the homophobic school board aboard his creaky wagon, was self chosin to save North Carolina from the imagined evils of the rest of the planet. The good Gov' recently managed to protect possibly criminal and unethical businesses from snooping truth gatherers, and Now he has managed to 'protect' students from imagined evils while at the same time placing Others in danger of injury, and the school system in the sights of law suits. Well Done North Carolina, your citizens should be proud and standing tall, and ready to foot the Bill, and your gun shops selling pepper spray like those perverbial hot cakes. It seems that 2016 is the 'new' 1950's. :/
NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOLS LET STUDENTS BRING PEPPER SPRAY TO CLASS — in case transgender students use bathrooms
In fear of transgender people using the bathroom, the North Carolina school system has allowed high school students to bring pepper spray to campus. (Chris Carlson/AP) BY Alfred Ngfollow
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, May 11, 2016, 4:43 PM
School supplies for North Carolina students include: pens, paper and pepper spray.
As if North Carolina’s anti-LGBT bathroom laws weren’t enough, now one school district is allowing students to bring pepper spray on campus — to ward off any possible restroom intruders.
The ROWAN-SALISBURY Board of Education’s stinging decision will allow high school students to bring mace to class, out of fear transgender people will enter the bathrooms in violation of the state’s HB2 law.
“Depending on how the courts rule on the bathroom issues, it may be a pretty valuable tool to have on the female students if they go to the bathroom, not knowing who may come in,” board member Chuck Hughes said, according to the Salisbury Post.
STASI: Attitudes toward LGBT haven’t changed since Stonewall
School board members believe the blinding spray will help students fend off any transgender students coming into the bathroom. (George Doyle/Getty Images) North Carolina’s controversial stance against transgender bathroom use has caused severe backlash for the state, now locked in a legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department after the agency said its law violated civil rights.
While Gov. Pat McCrory fights to save his anti-LGBT law, the school system has come up with a temporary solution — letting students carry a blinding, burning and stinging liquid spray at all times.
While there have been cases in the past of people dying after getting pepper sprayed, the school board downplayrf the eye-burner, claiming a bottle of Windex or a laptop would cause more harm than mace, the local outlet reports.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has been vehemently defending his state's anti-LGBT bathroom laws. (Al Drago/AP) “Having been pepper sprayed numerous times and being a school resource officer, the baseball bats that your baseball team brings everyday to school is a bigger weapon than a canister of pepper spray, that’s my thinking on it,” board member Travis Allen said, according to WBTV. “A chair from the cafeteria is a bigger weapon than a can of pepper spray, so that’s my thinking on that.”
The Rowan-Salisbury school district has more than 19,000 students, with eight high schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The school board emphasized that pepper spray should only be used defensively on campus.
Again, we Shoot, we cry, and Then, we shoot again. Another senseless death, and Then it's just another day, and No lessons learned. We are gun toten, gun slingin' Americans, Armed to the teeth defying Any rogue nation to dare cross our borders, or our Government, which we 'fear' even More, to deny us of our 'rights' to Be so. In the meantime, absent of these invisible demons, we simply take it out on ourselves, another shot fired, another wake. :/ :/
One Week in April, Four Toddlers Shot and Killed Themselves
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Zai Deshields, 4, at her home in Stone Mountain, Ga., this week. Last week she pulled a handgun out of a backpack at her grandmother’s home in Arlington, Tex., and shot her uncle in the leg.Credit Melissa Golden for The New York Times
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sha’Quille Kornegay, 2 years old, was buried in a pink coffin, her favorite doll by her side and a tiara strategically placed to hide the self-inflicted gunshot wound to her forehead.
She had been napping in bed with her father, Courtenay Block, late last month when she discovered the 9-millimeter handgun he often kept under his pillow in his Kansas City, Mo., home. It was equipped with a laser sight that lit up like the red lights on her cousins’ sneakers. Mr. Block told the police he woke to see Sha’Quille by his bed, bleeding and crying, the gun at her feet. A bullet had pierced her skull.
During a single week in April, four toddlers — Holston, Kiyan, Za’veon and Sha’Quille — shot and killed themselves, and a mother driving through Milwaukee was killed after her 2-year-old apparently picked up a gun that had slid out from under the driver’s seat. It was a brutal stretch, even by the standards of researchers who track these shootings.
These are shooters who need help tying their shoelaces, too young sometimes to even say the word “gun,” killed by their own curiosity.
They accidentally fire a parent’s pistol while playing cops and robbers, while riding in a shopping cart, after finding it in the pocket of the coat their father forgot to wear to work. The gun that killed Sha’Quille last Thursday was pointing up, as if being inspected, when it fired.
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Sha’Quille Kornegay shot herself with a 9-millimeter handgun she found while staying at her father’s house.Credit Haven Parrish, Jr.
They are the most maddening gun deaths in America. Last year, at least 30 people were killed in accidental shootings in which the shooter was 5 or younger, according to Everytown For Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group that tracks these shootings, largely through news reports.
With shootings by preschoolers happening at a pace of about two per week, some of the victims were the youngsters’ parents or siblings, but in many cases the children ended up taking their own lives.
“You can’t call this a tragic accident,” said Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor of Jackson County, Mo., who is overseeing the criminal case in Sha’Quille’s death. Her office charged Mr. Block, 24, with second-degree murder and child endangerment. “These are really preventable, and we’re not willing to prevent them.”
Gun control advocates say these deaths illustrate lethal gaps in gun safety laws. Some states require locked storage of guns or trigger locks to be sold with handguns. Others leave safety decisions largely to gun owners.
Twenty-seven states have laws that hold adults responsible for letting children have unsupervised access to guns, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, though experts say such measures have, at best, a small effect on reducing gun deaths. Massachusetts is the only state that requires gun owners to store their guns in a locked place, though it has not stopped youngsters there from accidentally killing themselves or other children.
Gun rights groups have long opposed these kinds of laws. They argue that trigger locks can fail, that mandatory storage can put a gun out of reach in an emergency, and that such measures infringe on Second Amendment rights.
Photo
Sha’Quille’s mother, Montorre Kornegay, said she did not believe that the girl’s father deserved to face a murder charge.Credit Daniel Brenner for The New York Times
“It’s clearly a tragedy, but it’s not something that’s widespread,” said Larry Pratt, a spokesman and former executive director of Gun Owners of America. “To base public policy on occasional mishaps would be a grave mistake.”
In Kansas City, Sha’Quille’s family is trying to come to grips with her death and the murder charge facing Mr. Block. In interviews, several relatives said they did not believe he deserved to be convicted of felony murder, but some questioned his judgment in leaving a loaded gun out while he slept as well as his actions after he discovered that his daughter was grievously wounded.
According to court records, Mr. Block told the police that immediately after the shooting, he went to the bathroom, wrapped the gun in a shirt and put it into a vent in the floor. He then ran outside carrying his dying daughter and yelled for a neighbor to call for help. He was also charged with evidence tampering.
Sha’Quille’s mother, Montorre Kornegay, said that she had recently separated from Mr. Block after more than five years together, but that they remained close. She said he loved the girl, whose first word was “Daddy.” When he called Ms. Kornegay from jail, he told her he was sorry and talked about how much he missed Sha’Quille.
The girl was just 2, but wanted to be older, telling people she was already 5. She would run through the house, playing her own private game of peekaboo, relatives said. In a cacophony of squeaky children at home, relatives could always distinguish Sha’Quille’s low, raspier voice. One day, she’ll be a singer, they told one another.
“What happened was wrong,” Ms. Kornegay said. She said that she did not think Mr. Block deserved to face a murder charge, but that he had behaved irresponsibly. “Why didn’t you stay up and watch her?”
A father’s call to an emergency dispatch call center, describing how his 3-year-old shot himself with a gun left in a bookbag.
Parents, police officers and neighbors from Georgia to California are asking similar painful questions this week. Here are some of their stories.
‘Stay With Me’
In 2015, there were at least 278 unintentional shootings at the hands of young children and teenagers, according to Everytown’s database. During the week in April when Sha’Quille and the other children died, there were at least five other accidental shootings by children and teenagers. Alysee Defee, 13, was shot in the armpit with a 20-gauge shotgun she had used for turkey hunting in Floyd County, Ind. Zai Deshields, 4, pulled a handgun out of a backpack at her grandmother’s home in Arlington, Tex., and shot her uncle in the leg.
A child who accidentally pulls the trigger is most likely to be 3 years old, the statistics show.
Holston Cole was 3, a boy crackling with energy who would wake before dawn, his pastor said. He loved singing “Jesus Loves Me” and bouncing inside the inflatable castle in his family’s front yard in Dallas, Ga.
About 7 a.m. on April 26, he found a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol in his father’s backpack, according to investigators. The gun fired, and Holston’s panicked father, David, called 911. Even before a dispatcher could speak, Mr. Cole wailed “No, no!” into the phone, according to a redacted recording.
Mr. Cole pleaded for his 3-year-old son to hold on until the ambulance could arrive: “Stay with me, Holston,” he can be heard saying on a 911 tape, his voice full of desperation. “Can you hear me? Daddy loves you. Holston. Holston, please. Please.”
Holston was pronounced dead that morning.
The local authorities have been weighing what can be a difficult decision for prosecutors and the police after these shootings: Whether to charge a stricken parent or family member with a crime. While laws vary among states, experts said decisions about prosecution hinge on the specific details and circumstances of each shooting. What may be criminal neglect in one child’s death may be legally seen as a tragic mistake in another.
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Holston Cole, 3, shot himself with a semiautomatic pistol found in his father’s backpack, according to investigators.Credit via Brent Moxey
Officials with the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office have suggested that they expect Mr. Cole to face, at most, a charge of reckless conduct.
“Anything that we do, criminally speaking, is not going to hold a candle to the pain that this family feels,” said Sgt. Ashley Henson, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. Sergeant Henson said investigators had sensed early on that the shooting was accidental. “You want to be able to protect your family and take care of your family, but on the same hand, you’ve got to be safe with your weapons,” he said.
Some gun control groups have urged states and district attorneys to prosecute such cases more aggressively, saying that, grief aside, people need to be held responsible for what are easily preventable deaths.
Brent Moxey, the pastor who officiated at Holston’s funeral, said the boy’s father was already haunted. “I think he runs the scenario over and over and over in his mind.” Mr. Moxey said the family — which did not respond to a message left at their home seeking comment — was still asking for privacy.
About 1,000 mourners attended Holston’s funeral on April 30, remembering a boy who loved superheroes and would sometimes wrestle cardboard boxes. The day he died, he spent time alongside his mother, Haley, as she read the Bible, playing with the highlighter pen she used to note passages, Mr. Moxey said.
“This little boy loved to tinker and to play, and he loved to get into things,” Mr. Moxey said, describing the very impulse that probably led to Holston’s death. “He loved to figure out how stuff works.”
A Ringing Purse
In Indianapolis, Kanisha Shelton would stay protectively near her 2-year-old son, Kiyan, watchful of the stray dogs known to roam through the neighborhood.
But on the evening of April 20, Ms. Shelton stepped away from the boy, leaving him in the kitchen while she was upstairs. She had placed her purse out of his reach on the kitchen counter, but when her phone started ringing, the boy apparently pushed a chair close to the counter, climbed onto it and reached for the purse, according to an account from a cousin, John Pearson. There was also a .380-caliber Bersa pistol in it.
Just after 9 p.m., Ms. Shelton heard a loud bang and rushed downstairs. There, in the kitchen, she found Kiyan lying on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. He was rushed to a local children’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Ms. Shelton’s mother, who answered her daughter’s cellphone, said the family did not want to speak about the death. No criminal charges have been filed.
The police in Indianapolis said such scenes were becoming more common. “The mother was obviously very shaken up,” Capt. Richard Riddle said. Indeed, on Sunday night, another child, 10 years old, died in what the police say appears to have been another accidental shooting.
A 2013 investigation by The New York Times of children killed with firearms found that accidental shootings like these were being vastly undercounted by official tabulations, and were occurring about twice as often as records said.
Photo
A detective in the garage at the home where 2-year-old Kiyan Shelton shot and killed himself last month in Indianapolis.Credit Michael Anthony Adams/The Indianapolis Star
Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, an emergency physician and a researcher at the University of California, Davis, who studies the public health effects of gun violence, said that nearly everyone — from toddlers to adults — can fail to accurately distinguish toy guns from real guns, loaded guns from unloaded ones.
“That doesn’t stop them from playing with it,” he said.
Mr. Pearson said he sympathized with Ms. Shelton and thought of Kiyan’s death as a tragic accident. “It was up on the counter, so I do think she thought she put the gun away, out of the baby’s reach,” Mr. Pearson said. “She’s going to be in a living hell.”
Essie Jones, who lives across the street, said Ms. Shelton had recently taught Kiyan to ride a small bicycle with training wheels, guiding him on the bike in the driveway. “They’d be up in the yard playing,” she said. “He was very happy.”
In a condolence book online, Dianna Mitchell-Wright, who identified herself as “Auntie,” wrote of her anguish over losing the boy she had nicknamed “My Main Man.”
“All I have are memories,” she said, “and your pictures in my cellphone.”
Anguished Goodbyes
The coffin that held Za’veon was no bigger than a piece of carry-on luggage, and it was so light that two pallbearers easily carried it through the packed St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Bermuda, La.
His full name was Za’veon Amari Williams, but to his family in Natchitoches, the 3-year-old was known as Baby Zee. On April 22, he found a pistol and shot himself in the head, according to Detective John Greely of the Natchitoches Police Department. When paramedics arrived, they found the mother cradling the boy and crying that he was not breathing, according to KSLA News 12.
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Sha’Quille’s grave in Kansas City.Credit Daniel Brenner for The New York Times
The police arrested a companion of the mother, Alverious Demars, 22, on charges of negligent homicide and obstruction of justice. Detective Greely said that the police believed that the pistol belonged to Mr. Demars, and that he hid it after the toddler shot himself. The police have not found the weapon.
“As a responsible adult it’s his obligation to secure that — to make sure a child does not get ahold of it,” Detective Greely said, explaining why Mr. Demars had been arrested.
The family declined to speak, but in a Facebook post, the boy’s mother, Destiny Williams, wrote that she had not been able to sleep and was a “useless sad waste.” “I can’t take life,” she wrote. “Why is it so cruel and unrelenting and unforgiving.”
The funerals for these children were filled with a similar anguish.
At the funeral for Baby Zee, the wails and screams grew so loud during a final moment of goodbye that ushers closed the church doors to give the family privacy. In Georgia, Holston’s father tearfully read a letter that reflected on how the family used to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” At the Kansas City funeral for Sha’Quille, family members crumpled as they looked into the coffin, shaking with tears or kissing her.
The day after Sha’Quille was buried, her maternal grandmother, Pamala Kornegay, reflected on the girl who was missing from the cluster of grandchildren who sat coloring on her living room floor. Ms. Kornegay said she was not angry with Sha’Quille’s father.
“We’re just upset,” she said. “It was careless. It could have been prevented.” So senseless, she said, because Mr. Block had loved his daughter so dearly.
