Woman who shot husband gets probation

[Brian]

Woman who shot husband gets probation


By Lawrence Buser, Memphis Commercial Appeal

A Millington woman who killed her husband with a .22-caliber rifle while he made doughnut circles in his pickup truck was sentenced today to three years of probation.

As part of a negotiated sentence, Linda Abbott, 40, agreed not to ask Criminal Court Judge John Colton Jr. for diversion, which could have erased the voluntary manslaughter conviction returned by a jury in November. In return, she will do no jail time if she complies with probation requirements.

She was charged with second-degree murder for killing husband Gary Abbott, 43, on July 23, 2005, behind their home at 9401 Riverbluff west of Millington.

Authorities initially believed that Abbott died in a violent crash when his truck hit a piece of farm machinery and burst into flames.

When a .22-caliber bullet was found in his head during an autopsy, however, Linda Abbott admitted firing one rifle shot in the air and a second shot that she said was an accidental discharge.

Authorities said the shot traveled some 150 feet across a field behind the house, struck Gary Abbott in the head and caused the truck to crash.

Linda Abbott testified in trial that her husband sometimes drove in circles in the field when he was angry or had been drinking. His blood alcohol was .26.

She told a jury the shooting was an accident, that she was trying to get his attention to come to dinner and that she had no reason to intentionally shoot him.

commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jan/30/woman-who-shot-husband-gets-probation/?feedback=1#comments

[oskar]

This should make the pro-gunners very happy.

[wayneinfl]

Right. Because I have constantly advocated shooting people without any apparent reason whatsoever.

[Peltigera]

But she had a reason, Wayne. She wanted him to come in for his dinner.

[Georgina]

That's how I generally call my family to the table.

[Peltigera]

Many left, Georgina?

[Georgina]

They don't tend to drive in circles in the backyard.

[Pax]

A couple of days ago, a 12-year-old girl struggled to take away a loaded gun from her 10-year-old brother who had taken it from his uncle's house. The 12-year-old girl died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Guns have a certain fascination for kids. Knives do not. You never hear of 10-year-olds stealing knives from their uncles, or 12-year-old siblings struggling with their brothers to take the "toy."

Guns are a unique, and deadly, temptation for kids.

[MacBeth]

No, it is only bad parenting that makes them so fascinated.....I have that on good authority. The weapon plays no part in it.

[wayneinfl]

No, it is only bad parenting that makes them so fascinated.....I have that on good authority. The weapon plays no part in it.

It's not just bad parenting. It's what's on TV, in the movies, in music. And parenting does play into that, but it's almost impossible to completely insulate kids from the glorification of violence when the influence of our media is so pervasive.

Speaking of bad parenting I can't imagine a kid who's so screwed up he thinks it's okay to steal things from his uncle's house, especially a gun. Where are the parents and what have they been teaching this kid?

[wayneinfl]

And as for the OP- I can't imagine probation for manslaughter. That blows my mind.

"Guns have a certain fascination for kids. Knives do not."

My little brother was sure fascinated with knives. And fire, too.

[Pax]

It'd be interesting to see statistics on how many kids have died playing with knives -- compared, of course, to the same numbers for gun deaths. Do you suppose they're similar?

[Pax]

This article can be used either way. As for accidental deaths, knives vs. guns, apparently the number of accidental deaths from knives was so low it didn't even make the chart. Accidental deaths from firearms in the US, though, were 1,134 in 1999. So though one might be able to argue that guns and knives have a similar fascination for kids -- I don't think so, but I have no evidence to back up my belief -- certainly gun fascination is FAR more fatal than knife fascination.

That said, this graph has sobering numbers. Firearms caused one-fortieth as many accidental deaths in the US in 1999 than auto accidents. Other things that were far more fatal were falls and poisoning. Fires, drowning, inhaling/ingesting foreign objects, and even surgical complications were all twice as deadly as accidental deaths from firearms. Using some black humor, apparently one is twice as likely to die accidentally from the procedure to remove a bullet than one is to die accidentally from the event that put the bullet there in the first place.

So, when it comes to accidental deaths, there almost seems to be no point in reducing firearm ownership. The only difference between guns and the other things on the graph is that guns are designed to kill people and people die from guns being used to execute their primary function; deaths from other things are invariably from the objects being used in ways that have nothing to do with their primary function.

www.anesi.com/accdeath.htm

[wayneinfl]

So, when it comes to accidental deaths, there almost seems to be no point in reducing firearm ownership. The only difference between guns and the other things on the graph is that guns are designed to kill people and people die from guns being used to execute their primary function; deaths from other things are invariably from the objects being used in ways that have nothing to do with their primary function.

Whether it's the "primary function" or not, are those in automobile accident deaths or drowning deaths or any other accidental deaths any less dead?

[Pax]

Hey, Wayne, I was cutting you some slack for once, but since you brought the topic up and make the excellent point that it doesn't matter to the dead person particularly much the manner in which he died vs. the fact that he is dead in the first place, I take it that you will then advocate lower highway speed limits (studies have proved fewer fatalities), helmets on motorcycles, seatbelts in cars, require all cars sold in the United States to have FULL air bag protection, mandate ALL smaller cars with large crush zones (collisions with much-larger cars being dangerous after all), etc.? Heck, I'll even throw in that you can mandate that cars be made out of all-steel, no aluminum or plastic, because the point here is safety, not fuel economy.

Or you could go VERY radical and insist that the society made possible by the automobile -- work, stores, school, and home being miles from each other simply because the automobile has made it possible -- must change, to bring ALL of these things within reasonable walking distance, biking distance, commuter rail distance, and/or perhaps low-speed vehicle distance (top speed no greater than 20, school-zone speed).

As I said, you made a GREAT point, per your last post, that it doesn't matter to dead people how they died, just that they died, and certainly the evidence is there that cars generate a LOT of fatalities -- more than all the other manners of accidental death COMBINED, according to that chart. In the past, you've been steadfast against ANY regulation of automobiles, claming that individual choice and market forces should be the only determinants of car types or, indeed, whether we have cars at all. Unfortunately, your current, excellent, point is in direct conflict with that philosophy. How do you reconcile that?