Children Who Kill

On March 2 you ran a story about children who kill. There was one aspect of the issue that was not not mentioned, perhaps because it seemed so obvious to the writer as to need no comment:

All these children had easy access to guns and ammunition in their own homes. Nowhere is there a mention of their having to break open a locked cabinet to get at the weapons. In one case we read that a child killed another with a .22-caliber semi-automatic rifle which his father had just given him; and then we read, “The kid had never shot a gun in his life, except for a BB gun.”

It seems to me that in these cases, and all others like them, the parents must be held criminally responsible. There should be specific laws to establish parental culpability, but until we get them I would think we could use child endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, accessory before the fact, et al.

KATHARINA SMITH

Canoga Park