Michael Santiago, 25, is under arrest for felony child endangerment after his 6-year-old son accidentally shot and killed his 3-year-old brother. Santiago kept the .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver fully loaded on top of the refrigerator.
The boys were reportedly playing “cops and robbers” when the gun went off. Their grandfather was watching them but was upstairs at the time. Santiago is a former gang member who said that he had the gun (purchased illegally off the street) to protect himself after testifying against a fellow gang member. Santiago, a manager at a Papa Ray’s Pizza restaurant, is being held on $75,000 bond.
Santiago appears to have been working hard after leaving the gang — putting in six days a week at the pizza restaurant.
The combination of the illegal purchase and the endangerment allegation could result in serious time for Santiago. The question is whether a court should consider the loss of the child in reducing the sentence. Santiago is described as a loving father who did a terribly stupid and reckless thing. Given the loss of the child, do you think that serious jail time is warranted?
Source: CNN
Cult of death?
My grandfather single handedly stopped a KKK mob by standing in the street with his shotgun. It was described as something straight out of the movies. But no one messed with my grandfather.
He was armed and protected the innocent from those who were pro-death.
As stated before, according to the CDC, 80% of childhood deaths are the result of parental neglect. This particular tragedy involved parental neglect with a firearm.
How, exactly, does parental neglect justify removing firearms from law abiding people? What about all the other ways that parents neglect their children? There are ALREADY laws against leaving a firearm around kids. This parent tragically broke the law. You do not punish law abiding people when someone else breaks the law.
I absolutely support public service messages reminding the public about the laws concerning keeping firearms out of the hands of kids, just like I support MADD messages against drunk driving, or the ads against texting and driving. Just like we already have laws in CA against texting and driving, people break the law and accidentally kill themselves and/or others, including, heartbreakingly, children. But we don’t outlaw phones. We just apply the law.
Pro-gun is pro-life, in being able to defend oneself and family.
And the death penalty kills murderers, so it’s pro-life as well.
All pro-laundry people are also pro-bleach.
All pro-travel people are also pro-car.
All pro-water people are also pro-swimming.
No matter how many 3 year olds are killed.
Sounds like a cult of death.
I am curious. Are those in favor of driving cars happy when a toddler dies because a negligent parent locks them inside a hot car? What about when a crazy person drives over someone else?
No? Then why apply false logic and assume that pro-2nd-amendment people are pleased when someone breaks the law and kills someone with a firearm or negligently lets a child play with a gun?
This is nothing more than faulty reasoning.
Most life here revolves around death.
ALL life revolves around death. That is just a fact. We begin living and dying the moment we are born.
Life is hard and it is really much harder when you are stupid. It is just too bad that stupid people also cause innocents to lose their lives.
All pro-life people are also pro-gun.
No matter how many 3 year olds are killed.
Most are also pro-death penalty.
That’s ‘life’ in these United States. Most life here revolves around death.
Do the people who support removing the 2nd Amendment think that the only way people can legitimately own firearms is if no criminal ever uses one in a crime ever again? No gun is ever used in a suicide ever again? No negligent parent ever leaves a gun out ever again or every law abiding citizen in the entire country must lose their right to bear arms?
Why is this standard not applied to cars? Prescription drugs? Pot? Pools? Household chemicals?
Why are pools not banned? An alarming, tragic, and totally preventable number of child deaths happen every year from parental neglect concerning bodies of water. Truly a shocking number – over 3500 a year.
For some reason, it is only firearms that this logic is applied to. No other dangerous tool.
I support the legalization of pot for medical reasons. It cannot be properly studied until it is legal, and there are many therapeutic compounds in the plant. However, it is a deadly poison to young children, who die from consuming pot brownies, candies, and other sweet laced edibles every year. The fault is not the pot, but the negligence that exposed the kids to it. You also should not drive while stoned, but, again, the fault is that of the driver, not the plant.
Henry – no, dead children are not acceptable, whether they were collateral damage or had gone down the wrong path and shot each other on purpose.
But the case is essential to combating the problem. The #1 cause is gang related. Break the gangs and the entire neighborhood would be safer, and more businesses would be willing to locate there, and more jobs would flourish.
There are parts of LA that my husband will not work in because of the crime. Crime is a defeating circle for a neighborhood, because it drives out more jobs and creates more misery which creates more of an impetus to join gangs.
Guns in the hands of stupid people, not exactly reassuring
Cars in the hands of stupid people
People texting while driving
Drinking while driving
Putting on make up while driving
Walking on train trestles
Walking down the middle of the train tracks
Crossing the street while texting or listening to music on ear buds
Riding bikes while wearing earbuds
HEY. Watch this!!! Hold my beer. SPLAT!!
All kinds of stupid in this world. You CAN’T stop stupid. Let’s ban cars. Ban cell phones. Ban booze…oh wait….we tried that one already. How did that one work out? Ban bikes on roads. Ban people walking on or near train tracks. Ban ear buds. Ban ban ban everything because some people are just too stupid to live or so stupid they harm other people including their own children.
Ban people from being parents until they can pass an IQ test and take some mandatory parenting courses.
What else will make us all safe…..right?
Those teen gang bangers are getting killed are by firearms. Is it somehow less important that they are gangbangers? Dead children are never acceptable, no matter who they are.
Who utilizes the gun buyback program? Has any murderer or gang member declared, “Hey, I planned to go kill this dude tomorrow, but since I can sell this gun, I’m going to not commit murder and be an upstanding citizen”?
Nope. Law abiding citizens basically pawn their firearms. Gang members continue to buy them on the black market. The law abiding citizens are disarmed and the gangs are still armed.
doglover:
“Many US Americans are very fearful of other people. They keep guns and watchdogs, both of which attack kids and visitors far more often than they protect the owner from danger.”
Based on what? Please provide your statistics that prove that firearms are used to commit a crime more often than they are used for self defense, or any other lawful means.
I can help you, and answer that question for you. There is no actual study, because the data is not collected. There are guesstimates, and anecdotal stories, but there is no mandatory reporting every time you use a firearm to kill a venomous snake, prevent a break in, or any other reason.
And why would you think that dogs attack kids and visitors more often than they protect? Where is your data? Where is the mandatory reporting requirement every time your dog scares away a coyote or mountain lion, alerts you to a venomous snake, or scares away an intruder? Again, there is none.
My dogs bark every single day to keep coyotes from jumping into my yard and carrying off my organic hens. My dog saved my 5 year old from a pack of dogs that tried to attack him.
A “watchdog” is just any dog who barks when someone approaches. You seem to be confusing them with illegal pit fighting or abused dogs or unsocialized.
This is an example of an emotional argument that claims to have facts not in existence because the position just “feels right.”
More children are killed by gang members every year than any other firearm related cause.
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/children-and-guns/
According to the CDC, more than half of all firearm related deaths of people aged 15-19 are gang related. Gang related homicides are more likely to involve firearms than any other.
Suicides also are included in the statistics of firearm related deaths of children, which is why responsible gun owners need to keep their firearms locked away from impetuous or unstable teenagers.
A full 80% of all childhood deaths are attributed to parental neglect.
Felons on parole kill 15 men, women, and children every single day.
So, if people care more about the kids getting killed than about the tools used to kill them, then they will break the gangs and improve our foster care and social worker programs.
Guns in the hands of stupid people, not exactly reassuring .
WELL I think the obvious solution is to make accidents illegal. No more accidents!
😛
I heard about this on the radio yesterday. Allegedly, this negligent father actually showed the gun to his 6 year old, and then told him not to touch it. There was no trigger lock, no gun safe, no putting it where he couldn’t get to it.
By definition of being a former gang member, he is a criminal who broke the gun laws of the state to obtain this weapon, and then broke the gun laws again by negligently putting it where his 6 year old could play with it with his 3 year old little brother.
Criminals break the law. They break gun laws, laws against murder, and laws against criminal negligence.
What is grossly unfair and heartbreaking is that it’s the 6 year old who got a life sentence. He will suffer guilt and anger and shame for the rest of his life for killing his 3 year old brother. As if being raised by a negligent father wasn’t enough of a hardship to the formation of his character, he has the guilt of a death for which he was not responsible. The father was.
All of our existing gun laws would have prevented this if the man had not been a criminal who did not respect our laws.
And most of us parents know you cannot leave a 6 and a 3 year old unsupervised to play. All it takes is a few minutes to get into trouble. The grandfather who was babysitting claimed he didn’t know there was a gun available in the house.
As a firearm owner myself, I keep all weapons locked away from kids. And even then, I have explained to my 5 year old that if he even touches a gun, it could go off and kill someone forever. He’s 5, so his understanding is determined by his age level.
My own brother was stabbed in his wrist by a dart when he walked in front of a dart board. It just barely missed one of his arteries. Kids accidentally hurt themselves and each other all the time. To have left out a weapon when kids are in the home is a mistake this father will probably wish he can take back forever. Parents do this all the time – they leave out drugs, household poisons, prescriptions, buckets of water, leave kids unattended by pools, leave the front door open by a busy street, leave their kids inside locked cars on hot summer days, leave their kids at home alone in their cribs while they go out to clubs to go dancing, bring home pedophile boyfriends or johns . . . the list of terrible, tragic, negligent mistakes are in the headlines every single day.
There is no license or test for becoming a parent, and it’s the kids who pay the freight.
BabsBee
The US government’s own nutrition advice was so completely wrong that it contributed to our current massive obesity rates and helped kill millions of people per year.
The tiny number of accidental deaths you and the gun-grabbers point out pale in comparison to the huge death rates caused because people followed government advice.
Why should anyone listen to what they have to say about how to fix stupid people, when they cannot even tell people what is healthy to eat?
HuffPo:
Key word: “Unintended ,” just like the toddler deaths.
So let’s make government illegal, given that it kills far more people.
Babsbee,
Your chart shows 43 accidents resulting in death or injury by gun. How many children have died this year from accidental drowning in pools? Shall we ban pools? How many have accidentally wandered into the street and got hit by a car? Ban cars? Ban streets?
Behind every one of these tragedies are irresponsible adults; we won’t fix that root problem but we can certainly agree it’s worth pursing.
Man’s Worst Enemy: 6 Negligent Gun Owners Who Were Shot by Their Own Dogs
Guns don’t kill people. Dogs with guns kill people
See…..proves my point. It is really hard to stop Stupid. 😀