A home invasion in southeast Kentucky turned deadly this past weekend, but thankfully it was the intruders who were harmed and not their intended victims.
According to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, the break-in took place early Saturday morning around 4:30 a.m. It’s unclear how many people were inside the home at the time, but authorities say it was a juvenile who took down the home invaders.
Upon their arrival, troopers determined that the two men involved had forcibly entered a residence with the intention of stealing firearms from a safe. During the break-in, a juvenile resident of the home discovered the intruders and saw them holding firearms. The juvenile, acting in self-defense, retrieved a handgun and shot both men before escaping through a bedroom window.
The two men who were shot have been identified as:
–Roger D. Smith,44 of McKee. He was taken by ambulance to Advent Health Manchester by Clay County EMS but later died due to his injuries.
–Jeffrey M. Allen, 51, of Manchester, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
In some states, the parents of the juvenile who acted in self-defense could be facing charges for giving them access to a firearm. In fact, there’s a bill introduced in the Kentucky legislature this year that seeks to punish parents who don’t keep their firearms locked up unless it’s under their immediate control or possession. SB 56 allows for parents or guardians to be charged with a Class A misdemeanor if they don’t secure their firearms “in an appropriate safe storage depository” or render it “incapable of being fired by use of a gun-locking device appropriate to the weapon.”
Another gun storage bill introduced in the Kentucky House makes it a Class B misdemeanor to “recklessly” leave a gun unsecured if a juvenile gets access to the firearm without their parents’ permission. That bill at least makes allowances for parents to decide whether their child is responsible enough to have access, but it would still be easy for an overzealous prosecutor to go after the gun owners for their storage habits.
“It is a total disservice to the people of the commonwealth that we’re not looking at the legitimacy of this bill,” the sponsor, state Rep. George Brown Jr., D-Lexington, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“It’s not anti-gun. It’s about gun safety,” Brown said. “When the next child gets hurt … I mean, responsible gun ownership is what needs to happen. Thoughts and prayers are fine, but that’s not enough when people die.”
We all want to see kids safe from harm, but what happens if they need to protect themselves or their families? Some gun-owning parents may not want their children to have access to their guns, but there are plenty of responsible moms and dads that have taught their offspring how to be safe and responsible with a firearm who feel differently.
These one-size-fits-all storage mandates may be written with the best of intentions, but the authors and supporters aren’t really considering situations like the one that unfolded in Clay County early Saturday. Instead of mandating that guns be kept under lock and key when they’re not being carried by their adult owner, lawmakers should be looking at additional outreach, training, and educational opportunities for both parents and kids on basic gun safety best practices. Knowledge is power, but these gun storage mandates are all about stripping power from parents and giving it to the state. The Republican majority should defeat these bills at the earliest opportunity, and they can point to what happened in southeast Kentucky last weekend as an example of why the gun storage legislation is a bad idea.
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