33 / One shot - one life ended, one destroyed
A year ago, in Sydney, a fourteen year old boy accidentally shot to death his friend and is now charged with manslaughter (SMH today).
This is a shocking story, not so much about the accident that happened, but about the manslaughter charges - the charges must be dropped immediately. It is not in the community's interest to have the boy punished; in the contrary, he - and the two families - need the best psychological help the community can afford.
Two other aspects of the story are shocking: The fact that the boys had access to a gun in the first place - let alone a loaded one - is incomprehensible. Secondly, the boys felt threatened by a motorist whose car had broken down and who looked for help. What sort of a society do we live in when the response that first came to the boys' mind was to arm themselves with a shotgun?
The two parties accountable here are the irresponsible father and the Shooters Party, with their stupefying talk of 'it's not guns that kill, but people.'