Cops raid family home over Facebook photo of child posing with gun

Look for more of these type stories. The left isn’t going to stop until all guns are outlawed.

That's flippin crazy! I hope he can sue.

I was carrying a gun and going hunting with my brother (he was 7) when I was 10. Without adult supervision...gasp... If children are raised with guns and are taught all the safety techniques there is no more danger than if you bought them a 4 wheeler. Actually the guns, if handled correctly are probably less dangerous.

Could there be more to this story?

I read in some of the comments the DCF person was instigating much of it.  Even if it was, it should have never got to the point of a lawyer demanding they leave the premises.   

DCF has been given way too much latitude and power......

The more to this story is some idiot saw a picture a of a kid holding a rifle that looks like a Bushmaster .223 and freaked out.  Just like a guy in Florence who ran into a local gun store about a week after the Newtown event and started screaming at the customers because there was a Bushmaster hanging  on the wall for sale.

The last that I read of the sad tale simply said someone turned the family over to Child Protective Services because of the pic. I'm guessing a mad relative? CPS agents (read: DHR in Alabama) have the option of asking for police to accompany them on home visits. Since guns were involved, they did. End of story.

After thinking about this, I have a question that I would like answered honestly. I see many of my Facebook friends post pics of children with snakes, yes, pets. Now I don't know a garter snake from a rattler, but suppose someone saw a child with a dangerous snake. Suppose the family lived in an apartment building or in a row of closely built houses. (I've read twice recently of boas escaping and making their way to nearby homes.)

If someone called DHR, and an agent visited the home with police, asking to see where the snake was kept, would anyone be so upset?

BTW, when I read of children who are killed by guns in the homes, I don't find it upsetting at some levels. These children are in a better place and won't face what was obviously going to be a tough life raised in homes that didn't care...or care enough.

BTW, when I read of children who are killed by guns in the homes, I don't find it upsetting at some levels. These children are in a better place and won't face what was obviously going to be a tough life raised in homes that didn't care...or care enough.

================

Seriously? Sheesh. I guess we can keep that in mind if any of your children or grandchildren are killed in any kind of an accident. They're in a better place than a home where their parent's/grandparents didn't care, or care enough.

_____

OMG!!! Am I reading this correctly? You don't find it upsetting at some levels? Exactly at what level of upset would it take for you to be about a child being shot & killed?

Sounds like your children/grandchildren is possibly being raised in a home that doesn't care or cares enough. 

Semi, do you consider the death of a child by an unsecured gun in its own home to be the same as the death of a child killed by a drunk driver while being taken to a ball game?

When a child, or anyone else, is "accidentally" killed in his own home by a gun, someone, somewhere has done something wrong. Sad to say, it's usually just not caring enough to secure the gun.

I dont think a child being killed by an unsecured gun and a child being killed by a drunk driver to be apples to apples.   

Maybe a child killed by fire in a home that didnt have smoke detectors could be a good comparison.  

Either way, I am not an advocate of leaving unsecured loaded guns accessible to children.  I either have mine on me or secured in my quick access safe loaded.  Loaded rifles are kept in a gun safe.  If I wanted to display my guns, as some people do, I would secure the ammo.  But I have a 4 year old in the house, some people dont have kids and dont have a need to secure their guns in their home.  And they shouldnt be forced to by legislation.

The key to this argument is education.  There should be some public service announcements made about guns.  Warnings about children and secure access placed on ammo boxes (like cigarettes).  Reminders to folks on a regular basis.  These are the things that prevent tragedies, all you want to do is punish afterwards when you talk about passing laws to force folks to secure their guns.

Regarding your comment about DHS asking to see where the pet snake is kept - my answer is the same as the guns - GET A WARRANT.  DHS has too much power - if abuse is suspected, the person making the accusation should have to, at least, file a confidential complaint and DHS should have to use that complaint to get a warrant from a judge (and the judge should know who the complainant is.)  That way, the judge can hold the complainant accountable if it is a false accusation.  You folks that say 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about' have never dealt with these folks.......

Kate, your remark that you don't find it upsetting [at some level?] that children are killed by guns in their homes, is what shocked me. Any child that dies, no matter how, should upset us all.   

Semi - I think Kate was saying that it didnt bother her because she assumes any parent that doesnt secure their gun is somehow abusing their child or doesnt care about their child and that the child is in a better place than they were here on earth.

A very bitter and biased view if you ask me.  I think that most of those parents are either uneducated or living under the old belief that 'I grew up around guns and didnt shoot myself.'  

Not securing loaded guns, to me, ranks up there with smoking in the home.  YES, SMOKING.  The hazards are known and documented, there is an easy way to prevent the possible health affects, yet people continue to smoke around their children (in their cars and homes).  I wonder if Kate advocates criminalizing smoking in the home if children are present.....

I wonder if kate ever allows/allowed her children out alone, either to play, ride their bikes, go to movies or visit someone else at their home etc.? If so, it seems to me that if something happened to them she, by her own logic, should be considered a non-caring parent.

Semi, at some level doesn't mean all levels. Most people get that.

Capt., you are absolutely correct about the need for more education, but many deaths from all sources come in homes where the parents did know better. Last year an off duty police officer in the midwest left two children unattended to run into a store. In the open console of his vehicle was a loaded and racked Glock. One child shot the other. Tell me the police officer didn't know better.

You could say the same about drowning deaths. When a parent says the child never knew how to open a door before, I have to wonder if that parent thought the child/toddler would never learn.

Kate - some things really are 'accidents.'  You can do all the right things as a parent and still have your child fall down a set of stairs and die.  Some things just happen.  To assume that a child drowns or is accidentally shot is the fault of uncaring or deadbeat parents is awful presumptuous.   

I grew up with loaded guns that were not secured in safes. One sat by the front door all my life and several were in my parents room either on a gun rack or in the closet. My Dad smoked 2 packs a day even while he held us and watched tv.

I thought I had a wonderful loving home. Never beaten or starved and taught how to respect and care about others. I have a huge extended family that was always near and we had awesome family meals every single Sunday. Life was happy and carefree. Who knew I would have been better off dead...

We live in a different world today. I keep my guns in a safe because I have a 4 year old grandchild that visits often. He has never really been taught about guns and gun safety. So I would not want him to have access to them. But to think that a child is better off dead than to live in a house with unsecure guns is a bit extreme to me.

Growing up on a farm we were around a lot of dangerous situations, yet I know that I had great parents who loved and cherished me. I remember a friend dying in a cotton wagon when I was a child. He had crawled up in it to play and sank down into it and smothered to death. His parents were devastated. They were busy working the farm when this happened and had told him not to play in it before, but kids will be kids and he didn't listen. They had 3 other children. Should they have been taken from them? In todays society those parents would probably be convicted of some form of child abuse or neglect.

Assume you live equidistant between two couples who lose their only child the same day. You know neither of these families. Family A left a loaded gun where the toddler could reach it. Family B was happily playing with their child in the back yard when a man wanted by police came running down the street and fired at his pursuers, the bullet ricocheting and hitting the toddler.

Do you tell me you have equal sympathy for both families? Do you not see a difference in the deaths of these children?

I might have more sympathy for the parents who left the loaded gun where their child could reach it. They have the added emotion of guilt to their grief. People make mistakes Kate. Doesn't mean they don't love their children just as much as you do. Doesn't mean they are bad parents.

I just read a story where a father was loading a gun and it went off and killed his baby boy. I'm sure it was an accident. Do you think he suffers any less than a father who's child was killed by a stranger? I would guess he suffers more "on some levels". What if a parent is driving and runs off the road while trying to reach for something in the car, and has a terrible accident that kills their child? No sympathy for them? Can you not see that life is full of possible dangers and no matter what we are all just human. We all make mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes.

If we started removing children from homes where parents make mistakes or don't always use the best judgement there would not be enough foster homes or orphanages to house them. We need to focus on true abuse and negligence. Not nitpick on every single little mistake a parent makes. There are children in desperate situations that need help, why muddy the waters with these kinds of things?

Jank, I totally agree about the incident of the CPS being called over a gun photo. Yet it's the law that all calls must be taken seriously and checked out. What if one wasn't checked out and the child was later killed. The public would demand that heads rolled.

I would not agree with you, Jank, on more sympathy for the family that left an unsecured gun where a toddler could reach it, but no two people feel the same on all subjects. How about this?

A mother leaves her small child with her boyfriend. She comes home to find the child not breathing. She puts the bf (on parole for a violent crime) on a bus and then heads to the hospital where the child dies (an actual event).

Another mother leaves her baby with her husband who accidentally falls on the child. He immediately calls 911 and starts CPR, but the child dies.

Which mother do you feel more sympathy for?

Kate, I feel sorry for you. I would hope I never see a difference in the death of any child, as they are all precious. Why should my heart feel more pain for the death of one child over another? There has been incidents in which a parent/step parent intentionally killed their child or the child was neglected to the point that the child died & I felt intense anger at the adults but never felt more sympathy for one child than another.     

Have you ever lost a child, Kate? Evidently you haven't, & I hope you never do.

Your little comparison of Family A & Family B doesn't get it. Both sets of parents lost a child, all 4 have a broken heart, the pain is the same.

If another woman had a child to die at the same time as when my child died, her heart would have been just as broken as mine, as matter how her child died.

I'm not speaking of sympathy for a child who dies, but his/her family. If we believe in God, and I do, we believe in children being taken to Heaven. They no longer suffer. Many cultures rejoice when someone dies, especially someone who's been ill for a long time or is disabled.

No, its strictly the parents I'm speaking of here. How about the woman who killed one child while co-sleeping, then three or four years later did the same thing with a second child. Feel any sympathy for her? She was arrested btw.

_______

Your first statement was that when you read of children who are killed by guns in the homes, you don't find it upsetting at some levels. That's what I was responding to.

You aren't God (if one does exist) & you can't say that child was obviously going to have a tough life raised in a home that didn't care. How do you know that child couldn't be adopted by people that wanted a child, that could give him/her a life with every opportunity?

My children was raised in a home with guns. Should  our children have been taken away from us?

I've never even hinted that I would feel any kind of sympathy toward a parent that would intentionally murder their child.

I don't think killing a child while co-sleeping is murder, just stupidity. I believe the woman was charged with criminally negligent homicide.

I can speak from experience, Officers are routinely called to accompany DHR, EMS, and Fire on calls that could have a strong potential to escalate or involve weapons.  The Officers have to understand the intent of those agencies involved and also keep in mind the other parties rights.  Often times there's no criminal charges and we're just there to observe.  I think that this visit has been blown out of proportion by saying it was a Police Raid.

________________________

Since in the first example the mother cared more about getting her boyfriend to the bus, than taking her child to the hospital, I would say she is one of those parents that should have had a visit from CPS. Any parent that puts the well being of their boyfriend, or girlfriend over  their child is unfit.

If, in your example of the loaded gun being left in reach of the child, the parents had not called 911 right away because they wanted to hid evidence, then you would have a point. If they were more concerned with themselves than their child then they deserve no sympathy from me or anyone.

Yet just making the mistake of not securing a gun does not equal either of those scenarios. It's all in the details.

_____________________

I have never understood how that was even possible. I let my babies sleep with me when they were small and there is no way I could have rolled over on them and killed them. Every little move they made, I was aware of. I would wake from a dead sleep from just a little squirming. I would sit straight up, and freak out when they did that crazy baby breathing. Every mother (and dad) knows what I am talking about. When they seem to stop breathing and then suddenly gasp for air. That is terrifying until they grow out of it.

Even if they were there to observe and the DCF agent was instigating much of it, the police should have stepped in and informed the DCF agent that he/she was out of line (if they were keeping the other parties rights in mind.). Looked to me as if the only person with the families rights in mind in this instance was the attorney who demanded a warrant before asking them to leave......

How did a picture of a kid holding a gun give DCF the authority to raid someones home?

======================

There was a sensible time when this wouldn't have happened, but we're living in the obamanation now. They're after guns and will blow any little thing up and out of proportion. Good grief, look at how they're attacking the small children. It's sickening the way they treat them.

You're the joke Best (Snow White Trash).... and a sick one at that.