“Oklahoma woman shoots daughter dead while aiming for stray dog,” Fox News reported Thursday. Oklahoma woman Amanda Myrene Fields Moffett, 43, pleaded guilty to accidentally shooting her daughter while attempting to kill a dog.”
“Moffett’s daughter told her that a stray dog was attacking kittens outside their home [and] she went to her front porch and fired a handgun into the dark,” the report citing “authorities” claims. “She failed to confirm that her daughter was out of the line of fire while trying to shoot the dog.”
It’s a parent’s nightmare of unimaginable horror. What punishment could possibly be worse than the self-imposed hell of grief and guilt this would put a mother through for the rest of her life?
U.S. Attorney Clinton Johnson put the point to this cautionary tale:
“Every gun owner has the legal responsibility to use extreme caution when discharging a firearm. This case unfortunately highlights the potential tragic results absent that caution.”
It’s tough to argue with that. After all, Cooper’s Rules show us that if things went down as reported, all four of them were broken. So, let’s argue.
First, let’s challenge the “real reporter’s” use of the word “accidentally.” Assuming we’re being told everything, the proper word is “negligently.” And this would have been criminally negligent, even if no one got hurt.
The other thing this report does is add fuel to the incendiary gun prohibitionists’ fire and abets their contentions that all the new people buying guns are endangering themselves and others and that women are particularly vulnerable to victimization when they have a gun in the home. That this doesn’t seem to happen when there’s an NRA/GOA/SAF member instead of a criminal in the home is never considered in such dire pronouncements.
It also shows the danger of lazy journalism when a news organization asks no questions/does no independent research, and essentially copies a government press release. To paraphrase the late Paul Harvey, “And now, the rest of the story…”
We might start by asking, “What happened to the ‘first-degree murder case’ filed in 2019?”
“According to the case’s probable cause affidavit, Moffett claimed she saw a dog in the yard and fired one round at the dog. She told deputies that the dog yelped and ran away. After the dog left, she claimed she then turned toward her daughter and, as she faced her, the gun fired a second time striking her daughter. The affidavit says Moffett said the gun then fired a third time ‘as though it was firing by itself.’ The report states Moffett threw the gun into the yard and it fired again.”
Talk about a multimillion-dollar product liability case! Either that or Alec Baldwin’s got nothing on her.
And then there’s a huge “however”:
“Moffett recalled to deputies there were a total of four shots fired, including the shot fired at the dog … However, when the autopsy results were received from the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner’s office, Moffett’s story about the number of gunshots did not match. The affidavit said the victim had four gunshot wounds, not three.”
So, what actually happened? Was the earlier story wrong? Were charges dismissed? Isn’t it the job of those reporting on this latest development to bring us up to speed?
What is clear is there’s a lot more to this story than an accident and conclusions to be drawn besides “people need to be careful” and “a gun in the home is more dangerous than it’s worth.”
We might also ask, “What the hell is going on with Cherokee police and justice?” both in Oklahoma and with the Eastern Band in North Carolina…
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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