MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Now juggling two felony cases involving children and firearms, Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser is urging gun safety. Frustrated, he's reminding firearms owners of the consequences when those weapons end up in inexperienced hands.
"Guns without logic and common sense can be very dangerous instrumentalities," he said.
Gmoser's message comes on the heels of a recent felony indictment handed up Wednesday against Yvonte Glover, 26, of Middletown for child endangerment.
Middletown police said Glover's 4-year-old brother got ahold of his loaded handgun on April 12.
According to court documents, Glover took the toddler and his three young children to Jacot Park on Grand Avenue in Middletown. When the 4-year-old walked back to the car to get his drink, he grabbed Glover's unsecured Smith and Wesson 9-millimeter instead, firing it into his stomach.
The gun was stuffed between the seat and the center console. The child has since recovered from the through-and-through shot, according to officials.
Another Butler County child wasn't so lucky.
Just weeks earlier, on March 30, a 3-year-old Hamilton boy shot himself in the head after investigators said he picked up an unsecured handgun left on a window sill in his home. The toddler died at the hospital the next day.
Benjamin Bishop, 26, a former Centerville Police Officer and the boyfriend of the boy's mother, was indicted in June and faces one count of involuntary manslaughter, one count of endangering children and one count of reckless homicide.
While Gmoser said he won't speak directly to the cases, as they are still pending in court, he did say the shootings were tragic accidents that could have been avoided.
"Guns don't have brains, people do. It's not the gun's fault. It's the person with the brain's fault," he said. "Guns have safety devices on them. Guns are capable of being locked up."
Ohio currently does not have a law requiring guns to be secured.
A change last year lifted the requirement for those 21 and older to obtain a concealed carry permit. It now also allows drivers to keep guns anywhere inside their car.
"The old law you would have to go through a class and you would have to train and part of that training is how to secure your weapon," Middletown Police Chief David Birk said in an April interview. "Also once you complete that class and you have that certification, it immediately shows up on your license plate. We don't have that now."
Gmoser said just because the law permits people to transport unsecured guns, it doesn't mean they have to do it recklessly.
"Hopefully those are the people that will not have that lapse of judgment by the means of, 'Well it'll never happen to me,'" he said. "So, when they follow the law they're going to say, 'I'm not going to have that firearm in the front seat in my car between a seat where a kid can get a hold of it."
Now, Gmoser hopes his message is heard loud and clear:
"If you've got a firearm and you're allowed to have it — you're allowed to have it in a car — you have to act responsibly with respect to it," said Gmoser. "And when you don't and somebody gets hurt badly, I'm coming after you in a real serious way and I would hope that a judge would feel likewise in the event of a finding of guilt and the consequences to make that person who acts with such reckless disregard of safety and injures someone an example."
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