"....Sometimes Caution Shouldn't Be So Much Exercised As Given An Exhausting Workout...."

It's one thing to armchair quarterback when a game is lost.

It's quite another when a life is lost.



(CNN) -- The father-in-law of a mother fatally shot in an Idaho Walmart by her 2-year-old son says she didn't have a mean bone in her body.

"Everybody that met her, knew her, loved her," Terry Rutledge said about Veronica Rutledge, 29.

 

She died Tuesday after her young son grabbed a gun that was in her purse and shot her in an apparent accident, authorities have said. The two were out shopping with other family members when the shooting occurred.

 

Rutledge put herself through school and was a chemical engineer, Terry Rutledge said.

 

"She was a fun-loving, outgoing, outdoorsy person. Her family liked to camp, hike, do outdoorsy things. They loved being together," he said.

 

He added that she had carried a gun for years and had extensive training.

 

"I cannot put any blame on my daughter-in-law because I know her, the training she's had ... I don't take it lightly ... I cannot put any negligence on her part. It was a terrible accident," said Terry Rutledge.

 

He told CNN affiliate KREM 2 that the gun used in the shooting had been kept in a concealed zipper pouch in her purse.

 

One gun expert described what happened as a "perfect storm."

 

The toddler was able to unzip the pocket and grab the gun -- without being noticed. He was also able to grip the gun and exert sufficient force to fire, at least three pounds, Robin Ball, owner of Sharp Shooting Indoor Range & Gun Shop in Spokane, Washington, told KREM 2.

 

"Murphy's law just came into play today in so many ways and there are irreversible consequences for that," Ball said.

 

 

 

 

Almost before this young woman's body had been gurneyed out of the store, the piling on of second guessing and shoulda coulda woulda-ing began to sprout up on line like crabgrass at the first sign of spring.

 

Most of the Monday morning play by play consisted of criticism of the young lady's leaving herself vulnerable by allowing a gun and a two year old to be within such close proximity of each other.

 

Others, more gracious in their observations, simply agreed, in principle, with what the gun expert eloquently offered. It was a perfect, and tragic, storm.

 

There's something both poignant and pesky in the human condition that seems to trigger when we are faced with something undeniably horrific.

 

The term "trigger" of course both an applicable description and an unintentional pun.

 

We feel the need to make sense of it, ostensibly for those who have experienced the horror but, in the clear light of truth being told, mostly for ourselves.

 

And that need often presents as the expression of opinion which often presents itself in the form of, at best, critique and, at worst, outright criticism.

 

As if, of course, anybody asked.

 

Any "chastising" of Veronica Rutledge on my part is both inappropriate and disingenuous.

 

At the heart of the matter, it's really none of my business.

 

As to satisfying my own poignant, pesky human condition, though, I'm moved to offer this.

Between the calls for compassion and the cries of criticism in this tragedy lies a lesson.

For me, it takes the form of remembering that I treat, and have always treated, weapons with the
same attitude as I treated driving a motorcycle in the day (and, for that matter, driving a car to this day).

A single moment's lapse in attention and/or diligence can result in injury or death.

And I was, in a non-dramatic, non-morbid way, always aware of just enough fear of that possibility to stay out in front of the odds....it took on the form, of course, of assuming the worst, even "pessimistically" thinking of the ways in which things could go wrong and doing whatever I could to prevent them.

But, because of that mindset, I never had a bike accident (although others who weren't paying attention tried to change that stat only to be thwarted by my "assumption of their carelessness").

And, to date, I've never had to face the insanity of dealing with a loved one killed by a weapon in horrific and unexpected moment.

Life can be cruel. Even the most diligent of us can be blindsided.

Shit happens.

But if ever there is a time in our lives when it pays to be an alarmist and/or a pessimist and/or a cynic as opposed to relying on faith and optimism and good luck in life, it is when we start up the engine of that motorcycle that we are straddling.

When we put that car into "D" and put our foot on the gas.

And when we put a deadly weapon and a child anywhere near each other.

Anywhere.