My 68 year old neighbor shot and killed her 72 year old invalid husband

[HockeyMom]

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2013/mar/19/wife-accused-of-killing-husband-a-saint-and-say/

I didn't really know them but saw her pushing him in his wheelchair for a walk. Sometimes I would see them having dinner in the restaurant.

I can understand that she must have been very stressed out taking care of him, but she could have gotten help to relieve some of the burden. Unfortunately, they moved so far away from their kids that they could not have help them.

This development is nearly all retired Seniors and Snowbirds. Why did they need to have a gun in their home? We've lived here for 6 years and there has not been one single break in.

They like to say that guns in your home make you safer. Apparently, not from your spouse.

[AndyA]

1. That's so sad.

I can see that the husband felt they needed a gun for protection, since he couldn't get around well on his own, and wouldn't be able to do much if there were a break in.

Whatever was going through the wife's head at the time she pulled the trigger was probably momentary, and would have passed with time. Stress can make it hard to think clearly, and were it not for having a gun in the house, she likely would have realized she wasn't thinking straight after a few minutes and her husband would still be alive.

They sound like they were a great couple, having owned a disco and a bowling alley in years past!

So very tragic. They believed the lie that having a gun in the house makes you safer.

[brer cat]

2. How horrible and sad.

Who knows the stresses she was under? Not a person who needed a gun nearby.

[Robb]

3. "For every instance in which a gun in the home was shot in self-defense..."

"For every instance in which a gun in the home was shot in self-defense, there were seven criminal assaults or homicides, four accidental shootings, and 11 attempted or successful suicides.

The cost-benefit balance of having a gun in the home is especially negative for women, according to a 2011 review by David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Far from making women safer, a gun in the home is “a particularly strong risk factor” for female homicides and the intimidation of women.

In domestic violence situations, the risk of homicide for women increased eightfold when the abuser had access to firearms, according to a study published in The American Journal of Public Health in 2003. Further, there was “no clear evidence” that victims’ access to a gun reduced their risk of being killed. Another 2003 study, by Douglas Wiebe of the University of Pennsylvania, found that females living with a gun in the home were 2.7 times more likely to be murdered than females with no gun at home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/dangerous-gun-myths.html?_r=0

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Which is why the NRA has been successfully blocking public health research into GUNZ.

[jehop61]

4. My neighbors too

Apparently this tragedy was caused by caretaker stress. No gun in the house might have stopped it So sad.

[shedevil69taz]

6. Don't forget pillows...

don't let him any where near the bathtub either.

Posting individual stories of a firearm being used in an incorrect manner doesn't really help the cause of enacting reasonable legislation.

[HockeyMom]

7. When my husband was out of work for over a year,

he got very, very depressed. He would go down in the basement in the morning and clean his guns, make bullets, and stay in that basement until it got dark. Day in, day out. You think that is normal? It terrified me. Was he going to shoot himself, or me and the kids? I went downstairs and tried to distract him away from those guns. Help with dinner, watch a movie, go for a walk, clean out the garage, etc., etc., ANYTHING I could do to get him out of that basement all by himself. So I was wrong to do this? I should have left him happily ALL ALONE with guns when he was so DEPRESSED? If I couldn't get rid of the guns, at least I could get him away from the guns. Wrong, again?

Stress, depression, and guns are not a good mix. I posted this because this is making all the local news, was down the street from me, and brought back to me what I experienced with my husband years ago. There is so much talk about the mentally ill being prevented from owning guns, but what about people who aren't adjudicated mentally ill but are very stressed or very depressed? What about them????? No intervention by others? Just leave them alone?

[HockeyMom]

8. "gun not used in an illegal manner"

What about Domestic Violence? If no gun was used in the abuse, should the abuser's guns be confiscated in that situation? Leave them for them to be used another time? The FIRST time!

[donco]

11. What you say

is indeed sad.As is the death of my nephew who hung himself.in his garage with a heavy-duty extension cord.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Yes actually it does help as the public is massively disinformed on the public health issues

related to GUNZ.

[shedevil69taz]

12. ok so I should have included in my statement this thought

I say individual stories aren't going to help bring about new legislation because for every story that someone finds supporting increased restrictions the other side can just as easily find an equal number of stories supporting their side.

[mokawanis]

13. Individual stories matter

because they become part of the accumulated evidence of the mayhem on our streets and in American homes. Four accidental shootings for every instance a gun is used for home-defense, but the gun nuts continue to say that guns make people safe.

[shedevil69taz]

14. The stories themselves

matter a great deal it is someone's life we are talking about after all. The life of the person who was killed in an accidental shooting isn't necessarily any more or less significant than the life (or lives) of someone who defended their home with a firearm.