this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023

644 points (96.3% liked)

News

23387 readers

3348 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

644

4-Year-Old Fatally Shot By Woman Who Was Teaching Her 'Firearm Safety,' Authorities Say (www.huffpost.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

232 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Warning: Article has detailed accounts of the shooting

Breanna Gayle Devall Runions, 25, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Evangaline Gunter.

The child’s parents, Adam and Josie Gunter, told ABC affiliate WATE that Evangaline had been in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood, which Runions shared with girlfriend Christina Daniels and another child, a 7-year-old girl.

Before the shooting, Evangaline and the older girl were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission, according to the warrant and a statement from Russell Johnson, district attorney general for Tennessee’s 9th Judicial District. Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom, authorities said the older girl told them.

After the shooting, the women drove Evangaline to a nearby Walmart location to meet an ambulance, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch told the Roane County News, and the vehicle transported the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Boduch could not immediately be reached by HuffPost.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Getting a gun, pressing it against the chest of a 4 year old and pulling the trigger

Versus

Getting a knife, pressing it against the chest of a 4 year old and pushing it deeper

What's the added difficulty here? Yes, in general you are correct but in this scenario it really wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference. A 4 year old's capacity for self defence against an adult is basically zero, this one's chances of getting to safety was basically zero. Even if you removed both guns and knives from the equation, they would have just used something else.

[–] loutr 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You really don't see how shooting someone (yes, even a small child) is a much, much easier and quicker way to kill them?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the thing, in this particular scenario, the way they did it, a gun wasn't any easier or quicker at all. If anything it was the worse option because of noise and damage from bullet ricochet.

There are many other scenarios where your assertions are perfectly valid but right here, for this scenario...it doesn't apply, and you're missing the point in trying to make it apply.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not about it being an easier or quicker death, it's about it being easier and quicker for the perpetrator. It's much easier to pull a trigger than to stab someone. She had the same opportunity for both, but the gun was easier.

There's also a good chance she thought she could play it off as an accident. Obviously that won't be the case with all the witness statements, but it would have been much harder to claim a fatal knife wound was an accident, and also less likely that an accidental knife wound would be fatal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It's not about it being an easier or quicker death, it’s about it being easier and quicker for the perpetrator.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about.

It’s much easier to pull a trigger than to stab someone. She had the same opportunity for both, but the gun was easier.

So in this particular scenario, the gun is actually not the easier option. Any particular advantage offered by the firearm is completely offset by the scenario, like the fact that there was only one target who was under their complete control.

There’s also a good chance she thought she could play it off as an accident. Obviously that won’t be the case with all the witness statements, but it would have been much harder to claim a fatal knife wound was an accident, and also less likely that an accidental knife wound would be fatal.

I mean, she didn't do a particularly good job playing off the gun as an accident either. If she were using the knife, she could say she was working in the kitchen, the kids were playing under her, she tripped, fell forward and plunged the knife into the kids neck. It'd be more believable than the gun safety story, as it relies a lot less on the adult being a completely clueless moron.

and also less likely that an accidental knife wound would be fatal.

True, depending on how the genuine accident happens. Unless you're stabbing someone 37 times in the chest, it is still perfectly possible to do a cover-up though.