11yr old left to defend herself with shotgun.

Good job she had the shotty handy hey guys? link

The argument for or against ownership of guns is a bit of a paradox, in one hand guns can save innocent lives, and in another guns take innocent lives. If that little girl didn't have access to that gun i hate to think what would have happened, so i am glad she was able to protect herself. Plus some people may find an 11yr old left at home alone is questionable.

What you think OT?

She's pretty hardcore.

The **** leaves an 11 year old girl at home by herself

Good on her. I don't even want to think about what may have happened to her if she didn't know where the gun was located and how to use it.

To me, the fact that an 11 yo had such easy access to a shotgun leaves me shaking my head... yeah this particular situation worked out OK, but it could've so easily been different.

I don't know, I guess every country has a different mentality on guns. I thank my lucky stars I live in a country where guns aren't so common.

Something about this news is a little off when I run it through my head.

Am I the only one wondering why a scared 11 year old, don't pull the trigger when the closet door was forced open and a stranger was standing there infront of her? I know I'll get a response like " Well Gun owners are better to stay calm and calculate the situation", but...she's a 11 year old, alone and someone broke into her house. Pretty sure some degree of panic was involved through the whole ordeal and would likely have her pull the trigger. Unless she simply screamed when the door was opened and that spooked the intruder.

I agree with this.

@ariabed: I think her parents are complete morons to leave an 11 year old girl home alone especially when guns are easily accessed. It may have worked out awesome in this case but this is the exception, kids getting into guns and shooting themselves or someone else is far more likely to happen.

Should 11 year olds be able to access guns? If yes, where do we go from here/what implications does this have? However if not, then this is merely an exception to a rule that is merely fortuitous and therefore not even a worthy discussion point.

I would like to think it's just because most people don't want to kill someone... even if they are afraid of them. I would think this is especially true for an 11 year old.

So guns are replacing nannies now? Leaving your 11 year old kid home alone I can even understand but leaving your kid home alone with an unlocked gun cabinet? Parents of the year right there =D

Hopefully she got a good gun lecture...I remember asking a class of 7-8yo what a gun was what it was for and the main reply was variations of "you use them when you're mad at someone". Then again, most likely TV will be the only place they will ever see a gun anyway so I guess the answer was expected.

If you are scared out of your mind, that's not a thought that comes to mind. It's usually fight or flight at that point, and even more so when it's a child.

Thus why I think it's more likely her fearful screaming had the intruder bolt out of the house rather then her standing ready with a shotgun thinking " I'm so scared but if he comes here then I have a shotgun, but I don't want to shoot him so I hope he'll just see me with it and leave."

People who don't coddle their children.

I kinda agree with you, but the 11yr old does come across as quite mature and sensible for her age.

I can't give you a blanket response here. Obviously this 11 year old was trusted enough to not only know where the gun was located, but was also mature enough to know that it was something that could hurt another human being.

This needs to be up to each family. Parents need to decide for themselves if they want their children to know where the firearms are stored. Ever since I started hunting with my Dad I've known where the guns are and how to use them. I never opened the cabinet and looked at them when he wasn't around. So I do think kids are definitely capable of having the responsibility of knowing where the firearms are.

Because the gun probably wasn't loaded.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

you people were never left alone as a child because both your parents worked?

well congrats on that fairy tale existence there richie rich.

i was way younger than 11 and i got home from school fixed my own dinner, did my homework, cleaned up the house then watched some tv and went to bed.

also, obviously this story didn't really happen because it does not fit the established narrative of guns bad 100% of the time.

I was left alone from around that age.

being a latch key kid was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

i mean sure there are negatives like my hubris and overconfidence but all in all i'm glad i got to do whatever i wanted to do and solve my own problems.

I enjoyed the large degree of trust I was given. It helped me when I got older because they never checked to see if I was sleeping, so I could always sneak out and go see a girl or my friends.

That...sounds very likely now that I think about it.

It really depends on the child. The majority of 11 year olds out there shouldn't be left home alone.

I was allowed to be home alone at 11, but then again, I was doing my own laundry, making my own lunch, cleaning the house and taking care of my sister by the age of 8.

Well in Europe most people. But then again you had 14 year old junkies giving BJ's for smack in Berlin in the 1970s lol

Otherwise here where I live you really only have nannies until you're like 6 or 7. You have after-school programs until 4 o'clock on most schools, but even then a lot of people just let their kid go home alone. Also many/most mothers have regular jobs as well. From what i roughly remember I was home alone after I turned like 10. And any sort of situation where my parents went to a party or something I'd be alone after I was like 8 or something lol. So yeah, you really don't need to be so overprotective of kids, unless he seems like the kind who'd do stupid stuff.

Good job. Courageous girl. Good news that firearm has been useful.

The people who have a problem with an 11 year old being left at home alone are just looking for something to start a crusade against. (Equally anyone who thinks it's wrong that she found a perfectly good way to defend herself. Shame on you.)

Hell at some point you gotta give your kid some space. Do these same people think you should keep your kids at arm's length whenever you go into stores until they're 16?

I can understand if the girl had health problems or something, then maybe leaving her alone and unsupervised at the residence where you are supposed to feel safe might not be a good idea, but she is a perfectly capable young girl. She proved that, if this story shows anything.

I was left alone at that age to watch my brothers and sister all the time because my mom couldn't afford to pay a babysitter. I knew where the gun was and never had to use it, a much as my siblings pissed me off. I don't know about today but when I was a kid in our state 12 years old was old enough to be left alone in charge of younger kids.

Absolute nonsense

What is it with people in this thread comparing someone who's 11 to someone who's older
Why is that a relevant comparison?

lol

^ was coddled as a child.

I blame video games.

I know how to handle a gun and I have since I was 7. I've been out shooting and hunting with my dad. I started with a 4-10 shotgun and moved up to 16 and 12 gauge shotguns. I've also learned how to sight and shoot a handful of rifles. I went through hunter safety at the age of 10 (which was boring, since I already knew how to handle and maintain a gun), but it was required if I wanted to hunt in Wisconsin.

I knew where the key was for my dad's gun cabinet, I knew where to ammo was and what ammo went with each gun. I could load, unload and shoot all the weapons he had except for his .38 caliber rifle - that was his gun and his alone, no one else shot it. My older and younger brother showed no interest in guns or shooting and they left everything alone.

If you teach kids how to use guns, what they're capable of and how to handle them, then they'll learn to respect them. It's the small population that thinks guns are a toy because they're ignorant or they don't care who they harm, they make guns to appear as a bad thing.

@ariabed: I hope this will clear out the confusion:

Girl, 9, shot before riverfront fireworks

Give all the kids guns am I right?

For all those bitching about 11 yo having access to guns:

Crappy parents

Girl wouldn't have been put into this situation if the intruder knew the parents were home.

You know, here in the real world, by the age of 11 most are already on their way to being the person they are going to be. When i was 5 I was leaving for the better part of entire days with my dog exploring the country side where your several hundred acre farm was neighbored by even more. That was the same age where i grabbed a drunk's bloody hand and said he wouldn't of been hurt if he kept his hands in his pockets at the local bar where my uncle was a bartender. Yeah, he took me down there at 2am to help clean up when I was in elementary school, and was able to grasp being drunk was pretty dumb/hazardous. I had a SKS when i was 8, and knew how to disassemble and properly clean, along with having sighted it in myself without anyone over my shoulder.

I know it's a thing to be useless sacks of fat these days until one has become the proper age of 30... but some of us are stuck with actually growing up when you're supposed to.

11 years is enough time to find that out.

You assumed that she was not taught proper handling and safety of firearms in the first place (obviously wrong since the article specifically addressed it). It's also incredible short sighted. Like most pro gun control advocates, they can only see the aspects that are immediate to the incident, not the larger picture. I think the perception that kids having access to guns being a danger is a product of shitty parenting and I'm not talking about the simple act of leaving guns where children can get hold of (that's the immediate blame), but the idea that we should shield children from adult responsibilities and consequences because once they hit a certain age, they magically acquire understanding of those things (which explains why kids in college are such responsible adults [/sarcasm]). Children in the Amazon forest start assuming adult responsibilities and risks as soon as they can walk. Not only do they do it, they relish it. Aspects of modern society (such as decrease birthrate, cost of child rearing etc) have effectively made children more precious in the eyes of parents and as a result parents have become overly protective to the detriment of their own kids natural development.

I think action demonstrated by this girl is very mature. The idea of being responsible for your own safety isn't one which most kids in modern society understands. And I credit that to the parents more than anything else.

No, we should shield them from real guns so everything they know about guns and the related responsibilities and consequences (or lack there of) come from movies and video games.

That's correct, because life is a game of probabilities. The closer you are to the firing range of a gun, even yours, the more chance you have of being shot. Children have no business being put in that danger. People who think otherwise have mental issues.

It's that kind of over protective mentality that make you a shitty parent. You are going to lock your children in the house forever, because "life is a game of probabilities" and the more they go into the outside world, the more chance they have of being killed?

Well, there you have it, folks. Keeping your child out of the firing range of a gun makes you a "shitty parent". Idiot.

No, shielding your kids from something they will inevitably encounter later in life instead of teaching them to be responsible around it and recognizing the consequences of their actions makes you a shitty parent.

I would never leave my kids at home, especially at that age. Even thought this time it worked out for her, i still would not leave them alone, or give my kids access to weapons.

Word.

Speaking of probabilities, if you really feel that strongly about it beyond keeping your children away from guns make sure to NEVER have them anywhere near a pool or a motor vehicle. Statistically speaking, those two account for more child deaths a year than guns.

If you can't trust your kid to be responsible at home by themselves at 11 yo, then I think there's a problem with the way you rise your kid.

Why is it inevitable that they would ever encounter a gun??? There are less than 11 million CCW carriers in the U.S., and even fewer open carriers. In a nation of 320 million, that's not even 5%. This is the problem with gun nuts. They live in this delusion that life revolves around the need for a gun. It's disgusting.

Not if you live in Tennessee or Missouri. In both states gun deaths have topped car deaths since 2013. You know, because guns make everyone.....safer.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/04/07/non-profit-releases-gun-report-criticizes-nra/25410387/

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article9311399.html

Oh, lookie at that. It just happened in Arizona too. Wow, actually idiots with guns are responsible for more deaths in 17 states than cars...

http://www.guns.com/2015/04/08/study-shows-gun-deaths-surpass-vehicle-deaths-in-17-states/

Oh, and just as normal, well-adjusted people have predicted, gun deaths are set to surpass car deaths nationwide.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/americas-top-killing-machine/384440/

Go, guns! Woo hoo. Keep making us all "safer".

All I took from this is she's lucky the encounter had a happy ending.