Warning: Article has detailed accounts of the shooting
Breanna Gayle Devall Runions, 25, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Evangaline Gunter.
The child’s parents, Adam and Josie Gunter, told ABC affiliate WATE that Evangaline had been in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood, which Runions shared with girlfriend Christina Daniels and another child, a 7-year-old girl.
Before the shooting, Evangaline and the older girl were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission, according to the warrant and a statement from Russell Johnson, district attorney general for Tennessee’s 9th Judicial District. Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom, authorities said the older girl told them.
After the shooting, the women drove Evangaline to a nearby Walmart location to meet an ambulance, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch told the Roane County News, and the vehicle transported the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Boduch could not immediately be reached by HuffPost.
In the context of the States, I don’t see how any new legislative intervention can deal with the 400 million existing guns in the nation. No country in the history of humanity has had to deal with that. My question is, can it even be dealt with?
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s misplaced cynicism. But, seems to me, the vast existing supply of firearms leads to a permanent condition where, a person who wants to do something bad with a gun, will find access one way or another. I genuinely have no idea how that situation gets fixed. “Do what Japan does” - which I’ve heard sincerely spoken aloud - is naive and would not be effective there.
I don’t live in the States, so it’s not my place to navigate the moral issues or make judgements. I just don’t understand how new gun control measures patterned on other countries in very different situations of supply could be effective, and properly target shitbags like the murderer in the OP article, in advance of a killing.