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The Guardian reports that the woman who was accidentally shot dead by her two-year-old son in an Idaho Walmart is described by those who knew her as a gun lover, a motivated academic and a successful nuclear research scientist who worked for Battelle’s Idaho National Laboratory and wrote several papers there including one on using glass ceramic to store nuclear waste (PDF). Rutledge was raised in north-east Idaho and always excelled at school, former high school classmate Kathleen Phelps said, recalling her as “extremely smart. … valedictorian of our class, very motivated and the smartest person I know. … Getting good grades was always very important to her.”
Veronica Rutledge and her husband loved everything about guns. They practiced at shooting ranges. They hunted. And both of them, relatives and friends say, had permits to carry concealed firearms. “They are painting Veronica as irresponsible, and that is not the case,” says Terry Rutledge, her husband’s father. “… I brought my son up around guns, and he has extensive experience shooting it. And Veronica had had hand gun classes; they’re both licensed to carry, and this wasn’t just some purse she had thrown her gun into.” Many locals don't discern anything odd with a 29-year-old woman carrying a loaded gun into a Wal-Mart during the holiday season. “It’s pretty common around here,” says Stu Miller. “A lot of people carry loaded guns.” More than 85,000 people, 7 percent of Idaho's population, are licensed to carry concealed weapons (PDF), “In Idaho, we don’t have to worry about a lot of crime and things like that,” says Sheri Sandow. “And to see someone with a gun isn’t bizarre. [Veronica] wasn’t carrying a gun because she felt unsafe. She was carrying a gun because she was raised around guns. This was just a horrible accident.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @01:52AM
George Zimmerman would be dead if he used these arrangements
...assuming he also had
1) decided to stalk a kid who was just walking down the street
2) then confronted that kid who was doing nothing illegal or even suspicious
3) then pulled a weapon on the kid who had a pack of candy in one hand and a can of iced tea in the other
...and here's the big one--which radically deviates from the facts
4) the kid drops his treats and pulls a weapon of equal or greater capacity out of his ass.
Killing someone with a firearm in an incident that -you- started is murder.
Anyone who defends George Zimmerman has distorted the facts beyond all recognition.
Each of us should hope that we never gain the attention of a George Zimmerman.
...especially in Florida or any of the other shoot-first states.
-- gewg_