WASHINGTON -- It was Christmas night when Sincere Smith, 2, found his father’s loaded gun on the living room table of their Conway, S.C., mobile home. It took just a second for Smith’s tiny hands to find the trigger and pull. A single bullet ripped into his upper right chest and out his back.
His father, Rondell Smith, said he had turned away to call Sincere’s mother, who had left to visit a friend. His back was turned to the toddler, he said, for just that moment.
Sincere was still conscious when his father scooped him up and rushed him to the hospital, just a few minutes away.
Eleven hours earlier, Sincere Smith had woken up to Christmas -- the first that he was old enough to appreciate. His father remembered their last morning well -– his son ripping through wrapping paper, squealing with delight with each new gift -- his first bike, a bright toy barn.
It was quite a sight seeing Sincere so happy around a cloud of crinkled wrapping paper. “We bought him a little barn thing,” Smith said. “He knew what a barn is. He just seen it -– ‘Oh Mommy, Daddy! Barn!’ He went crazy over it. … He lit up like a Christmas tree.”
Smith, 30, lit up too. “I just wanted to see him open them up,” he said. His own parents were teenagers when they had him. He had vowed to be there for his five children, giving up college and a possible basketball career to take care of them. With Sincere, he promised his wife he’d be a hands-on parent. He said he considered Sincere his best friend.
The two kept close that day visiting relatives for more presents and a Christmas dinner of chicken and macaroni and cheese. “Everything was normal,” Smith said. “He was happy. Everything was good then.”
Two weeks earlier, Smith had bought a .38-caliber handgun to protect his family after bandits had tried to break into their home. He doesn’t know what to say about the national gun-control debate. He just wants that lost second back. “I would say, man, keep them out of your house,” he offered. “It’s just. Boy. All it takes is a second. Just a second to turn your head. I don’t know, sir.”
Sincere died on an ambulance gurney as he was transferred to a second hospital in Charleston.
He never got to ride his new blue Spiderman bike outside. It sits in the trunk of his grandmother Sheila Gaskin's car. "He didn't get to ride his bike," she explained. "It was cold [on Christmas]. My daughter doesn't want to take it back to the store."
Gaskin lives across the street from her daughter and Smith. She saw Sincere every day of his life. "He hear me coming down the road, my gospel music blasting and he hollering 'Nana!'" she recalled. Now, she said she visits his grave every day. She hasn't gotten a full night's sleep since the accident. "It's just killing me," she said.
After Sincere was shot, Rondell Smith thought about taking his own life, Gaskin said. "It's just not good," she said. "It's not good at all. He just has to stay prayed up. ... That's all he can do is give it to God."
Smith wasn't at Sincere's side when he died in the ambulance. He was being interrogated by the police, who eventually charged him with involuntary manslaughter. His next court date is Feb. 8.
As he was rushing Sincere to the hospital, Rondell said he told his son that he loved him. "He couldn't really talk," Smith said. "Last thing I heard him say was, 'Daddy.' He kept trying to say 'Daddy.' Believe me I hear it every day."
There were 29 other shooting deaths across the U.S. on Christmas. A soldier was shot and killed in his barracks in Alaska. A man was murdered in the parking lot of Eddie's Bar and Grill in Orrville, Ala. A 23-year-old was shot at a party in Phoenix. A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department employee was killed in a drive-by.
A 20-year-old Louisville, Ky., man was shot and killed after walking his sister home. On Christmas Eve, he had posted an R.I.P. on his Facebook page for a friend and former classmate, who had been gunned down that day.
A 10-year-old in Memphis, Tenn., Alfreddie Gipson, was accidentally shot to death by gun purchased by an older brother, who had gotten the weapon after being bullied at school. Gipson was jumping on a bed when the gun slipped out of a mattress. It discharged when his 12-year-old brother tried to put it back, their mother said at a vigil.
There were at least 41 homicides or accidental gun deaths on New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, at least 54 people died from bullet wounds.
Through Google and Nexis searches, The Huffington Post has tracked gun-related homicides and accidents throughout the U.S. since the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn., on the morning of Dec. 14. There were more than 100 such deaths the first week after the school shooting. In the first seven weeks after Newtown, there have been more than 1,280 gunshot homicides and accidental deaths. Slate has counted 1,475 fatal shooting incidents since Newtown, including suicides and police-involved shooting deaths, which The Huffington Post did not include in its tally.
A 17-year-old took his last breath in the backyard of an abandoned house in New Orleans. Prince Jones, 19, was found bleeding to death in a 1998 Buick LeSabre in Nashville, Tenn. A woman was slumped over the steering wheel in Houston, the engine still running.
A 52-year-old man was shot and killed at a Checkers parking lot in Atlanta. A 26-year-old man was shot to death in a church parking lot in Jacksonville, Fla. Steven E. Lawson, 28, was shot and killed just outside a church in Flint, Mich., where he was attending a funeral for another gunshot victim.
On a Tuesday morning in Baton Rouge, La., police knocked on Alean Thomas' door and told her: "You have a young man dead in your driveway." It was her 19-year-old son. Three days later, a 17-year-old in California was killed visiting family for his birthday.
On a Thursday afternoon in New Orleans' Sixth Ward, Dementrius Adams was murdered on his way to buy groceries for his mother. He was 28 and had a 5-year-old daughter. "He was a hard-working man," his sister said told a reporter. "He was so proud of his job. ... He was a good brother, a good father -- he was a loveable man."
Adams had just been promoted from a dishwashing job to cook at a New Orleans restaurant.
The dead included grandmothers. One was 6 months old. There were police officers and a Texas prosecutor. There was a Bodega worker in Queens, N.Y., and a gas station attendant in East Orange, N.J.
A high school majorette, a college freshman at Auburn University and a man planning to get his GED in Bradenton, Fla., were killed. One victim became Chicago's 500th murder of 2012. Another was his town's 40th. One was found frozen and bloody in an alley -- Tacoma, Wash.'s first slaying of 2013. The victim, a mother, was planning to move with her daughters to Manhattan.
"I am lost, hollow," said the mother of the GED aspirant gunned down at a Chevron station on New Year's Day.
In Newport News, Va., after a shooting broke out, a mother ran outside to protect her two sons, ages 5 and 7. She yelled at one of the gunman and was killed.
A Davidson, N.C., husband murdered his wife, then shot himself . Their 3-year-old daughter was found watching T.V. in another room.
There were murder-suicides in Florida, Kentucky, Oregon, Texas and California. Most were men killing women, husbands killing wives, boyfriends killing girlfriends, sons killing mothers.
There were so many drive-bys.
On Jan. 11, in Baltimore, Devon Shields, 26, was found lying in a street with a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. Three hours later, Delroy Davis was found lying face-up between two houses. Two-and-a-half hours later, Baltimore police rushed to a double-shooting that left one man dead with multiple gunshot wounds. The next day, Sean Rhodes was found "lying face-down in a pool of blood," according to the Baltimore City Paper. Two others survived gunshot wounds.
Silly arguments became final arguments. A man was murdered over two broken cigarettes. Another after getting into a spat at a taco truck. Travis Len Massey, 23, was shot and killed by his sister's boyfriend in a family dispute over a missing gun. A 52-year-old Jacksonville man shot and killed a longtime friend over an argument, according to police. When asked what the argument was about, the gunman said he didn't remember, according to a television report.
A 6-year-old accidentally killed a 4-year-old. A different 4-year-old accidentally killed a 58-year old.
Alexander Xavier Shaw, 18, put a gun to his head to show how safe it was. "Witnesses told officers that Shaw, his uncle, grandparents and some friends were on the back patio talking when he showed them a .38-caliber revolver," a St. Petersburg, Fla., newspaper account said. The gun accidentally fired, killing Shaw.
Mark Hanrahan, Melissa Jeltsen, Benjamin Hart, Adam Goldberg, Peter Finocchiaro, Chelsea Kiene and William Wrigley contributed reporting.
Also on HuffPost:
Funds For First Responders
The Obama administration will call on Congress to provide additional funding to train public and private personnel at schools to respond to active shooter situations.
Invest In School Safety Strategies
The Obama administration, through executive action, encourages school districts to use Comprehensive School Safety Grants to purchase school safety equipment, develop and update public safety plans, conduct threat assessments and train "crisis intervention teams" of law enforcement officers to work with the mental health community while responding and assisting students in crisis.
Money For Safer & Nurturing School Climates
The Obama administration cites that with technical assistance from the Department of Education, 18,000 schools have already put evidence-based strategies to improve school climate into action. Through executive action, the administration proposes a new $50 million initiative to help 8,000 more schools train teachers and staff to implement these strategies.
Resources For Youth Who Witness Violence
To help schools break the cycle of violence, the administration will urge Congress to provide $25 million to offer students mental health services for trauma or anxiety, conflict resolution programs and other school-based violence prevention initiatives.
Incentives For Schools To Hire Resource Officers
Under Obama's executive action, the Department of Justice will provide an incentive for police departments that hire officers through COPS Hiring Grants by providing a preference for grant applications that support school resource officers.
Close Background Check Loopholes
The Department of Justice will invest $20 million in FY2013 to give states stronger incentives to share information with the background check system. President Obama signed executive action requiring federal agencies to make crucial records available to the background check system and also to ensure that such records are frequently updated.
Boost Gun Owner Accountability & Responsibility
President Obama signed an executive action reaffirming his respect for the Second Amendment, but acknowledging that the right to bear arms comes with a responsibility to safely store guns to prevent them from being accidentally or intentionally used to harm others.
Serious Punishment For Gun Trafficking
Today, guns can be purchased easily from unlicensed dealers or from "straw purchasers" who pass the required background check, but give the guns to criminals. The Obama administration will include an explicit law against straw purchasing and others who traffic guns, including prosecutions for paperwork violations.
15,000 Cops On The Street
The Obama administration recognizes that it is crucial to keep more officers within communities and neighborhoods in order to prevent gun violence. The president calls on Congress to put forth a $4 billion proposal to help keep 15,000 police officers on the streets across the country.
Assault Weapons Ban
The federal assault weapons ban that was in place from 1994 to 2004 was a first step, but President Obama acknowledged that manufacturers were able to circumvent the prohibition with cosmetic modifications to their weapons. Obama is pressing Congress to introduce legislation reinstating and expanding the ban to include all assault weapons.
High-Capacity Magazine Ban
President Obama will urge Congress to reinstate the prohibition on ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Shooters at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Ariz., Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wis. and Newtown, Conn. all used magazines that had a capacity of more than 10 rounds, which come standard with many handguns and rifles.
Remove ATF Restrictions
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is required to authorize the importation of dangerous antique weapons that are at least 50 years old. Obama will press Congress to remove restrictions and enable the ATF to ensure that incoming weapons are actually acquired as collectibles and not for putting the weapons in the wrong hands.
Broader Access To Reports On Lost & Stolen Guns
Under Obama's executive action, the Department of Justice plans to publish an annual report on lost and stolen guns to ensure data collected by the ATF is available.
Protect Doctors Who Talk About Guns
Some have erroneously claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking patients about guns and gun safety. According to Obama's executive action, the administration will issue guidance clarifying this misconception and reiterating the importance of protecting doctors who have discussions on safe storage of firearms, especially if their patients show signs of certain mental illnesses, have young children or have a mentally ill family member at home.
Promote Responsible Gun Ownership
As declared by Obama's executive action, the administration will encourage gun owners to take responsibility for keeping their guns safe through a national campaign promoting common-sense gun safety measures.
Enhance Gun Tracing Data
Law enforcement can trace a gun's path from it's manufacturer, the dealer who sold it and its first purchaser. However, not all federal law enforcement agencies require a trace on guns they recover and keep in custody. President Obama signed executive action requiring a trace on <em>all</em> firearms.
Promote Safe Gun Safety Technology
The president is directing the attorney general through executive action to work with technology experts to review emerging gun safety technology that helps guard against unauthorized access and use.
$150 Million For In-School Resources
The Obama administration is urging Congress to take up a Comprehensive School Safety program that will offer $150 million to school districts and law enforcement agencies to hire resource officers, school psychologists, social workers and counselors. The Department of Justice will also develop a model for schools that use resource officers, including age-appropriate methods for working with students.
Change School Discipline Practices
Students who are suspended or expelled are far more likely to repeat a grade, not graduate or become involved in the juvenile justice system. The Obama administration believes effective school discipline policies are critical to addressing school and community crime and violence issues. Under Obama's executive action, the Department of Education will collect and execute best practices on school discipline policies and help schools implement these policies.
Mental Health Treatment For Youth
Through partnerships such as the newly proposed Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education), President Obama is urging Congress to take up a comprehensive plan to reach 750,000 young people through programs for early detection of mental illness and swift treatment. Project AWARE includes $15 million for training teachers and other adults who interact with youth to detect and respond to mental illness.
Clarify Mental Health Coverage In Private Insurance Plans
By executive action, Obama announced a plan to finalize regulations that would require group health plans offering mental health care to cover such services at parity under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act requires all new small group and individual plans to cover mental health and substance abuse services.
Mental Health Coverage For Medicaid Recipients
There is some evidence that Medicaid plans do not always meeting mental health parity requirements. In an executive action, the Obama administration issued a letter to state health officials insisting that these plans must comply with mental health parity requirements.
Source : huffingtonpost[dot]com
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