A horrific shooting has stunned parents of a neighbourhood near Knoxville in the US.
A young boy of eleven years of age was chatting to three girls near his home on Saturday evening when he asked to see two new puppies belonging to one of the girls, McKayla Dyer.
When the little girl refused, shockingly, the boy retrieved his father's 12-gauge shotgun and shot the girl in the chest from the window of his house. He threw the weapon outside by the girl's body.
The little girl was unresponsive at the scene and pronounced dead in hospital.
McKayla Dyer was a second-grader – the equivalent of second class in an Irish primary school – at White Pine Elementary School, and the boy was in fifth grade at the same school.
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Image via The NyPost.com[/caption]
If this unthinkable tragedy does not make people question having a gun in their homes, we don't know what does. This news also comes in the same week as the heinous Oregon shootings, and just amplifies the lack of gun laws in the US, and the danger this poses to children.
In President Obama's speech in reaction to the shooting, he said, "Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people."
He has renewed his call for stricter gun laws following the shooting and expressed exasperation at the frequency of mass shootings in the US.
We think to reverse completely a cultural acceptance of gun-ownership it will take more than just stricter gun laws, but in the meantime, we hope no more children become needless victims of gun horror.
In Obama's words, "It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun."
