Lock up your guns

Who's responsible for the death of an 8-year-old Port Clinton boy who was shot and killed over the weekend in an accidental shooting? Police arrested a 13-year old boy, a relative of the deceased. Like so many in the community, we're overwhelmed with sadness for a boy everyone loved, for his family, his loved ones and his classmates. We also share a deep sadness for the 13-year-old. We hope this child gets the care he needs, the counseling he needs, to come to terms with what happened.It is such a needless tragedy we've all seen repeated so many times, and again shows that life can be gone in an instant, in a moment everything can change. Our thoughts are with this family, with the parents and grandparents, his siblings, who could never have known such a thing would happen, and whose lives are forever changed by it.The right to bear arms comes with responsibilities to own those arms in a safe way; to assure that guns don't fall into the hands of children or others, who do not understand the deadliness of a gun, the permanence of the damage a gun can do.Newspapers write about tragedies and our audience reads those stories. One reason why that is, is human nature and the survival instinct. We read about how others die so we won't die that way, so we can keep our families safe from dying that way. If you're a responsible gun owner, please keep your weapons under lock and key, keep them away from children and out of reach.Benjamin LeGresley