Grandpa of Toddler Who Shot Mother Says to Quit Using Accident to Push Gun Control

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. Veronica typically left her Blackfoot, Idaho, home with her gun nestled at her side. So on Christmas morning last week, her husband gave her a present he hoped would make her life more comfortable: a purse with a special pocket for a concealed weapon. . .

On Tuesday morning . . . Veronica, 29, arrived at a nearby Wal-Mart in Hayden with her three nieces and son, her gun “zippered closed” inside her new purse, her father-in-law said. Then, in the back of the store, near the electronics section, the purse was left unattended for a moment.

“An inquisitive 2-year-old boy reached into the purse, unzipped the compartment, found the gun and shot his mother in the head,” Rutledge said. “It’s a terrible, terrible incident.”

The aftermath has been crushing, he said. His son went to the Wal-Mart to collect his nieces and son, and no one now is sure what to say to the boy, who is not doing well. . .

Rutledge isn’t just sad — he’s angry. Not at his grandson. Nor at his dead daughter-in-law, “who didn’t have a malicious fiber in her body,” he said. He’s angry at the observers already using the accident as an excuse to grandstand on gun rights. (Read more about how this tragedy is beings used to push gun control HERE).

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