Endfamilyfire.org

[Gawdzilla Sama]

People should be publicly punished for letting their kids kill people.

[SYZ]

Every summer in Australia we have a few too many children dying of heatstroke after being left locked up in hot cars.
Every year here, over 5,000 children are rescued after being left unattended in a car.  The excuses these parents
give are fucking disgusting, with many simply claiming to have "forgotten" they'd left the kids in carparks while shopping,
drinking or gambling, or that they had a "busy schedule", were "stressed", or were "exhausted".

On a hot day, the interior of a car can easily be more than 30ºC higher than outside, which could be 40ºC.  And 70ºC is
equal to around 160ºF.  Parents are very seldom even charged with manslaughter here, but there was one recent case
where a mother was actually charged with the murder of her two children, for the "reckless indifference to human life".

[Chas]

And a non-custodial sentence, (with no ongoing expenses for the taxpayer), could work as an 
excellent deterrent.

Whilst the fear of their child being killed by a non-secured weapon didn't motivate the parent in the first place,
the awareness of a serious penalty for allowing a death to occur due to their own idiocy might just save a
few children's lives. The child's death in these sorts of scenarios are caused by an act of negligence, by the
parent, that could reasonably be foreseen to result in injury or death.

There's only one problem. Punishment serving as a deterrent for that type of behavior has proven to be extremely inefficient. Beside giving a sense of righteousness to those who aren't imprudent with firearms, you should not expect any positive results from punishing with the strength of the law such behavior. You would do much, much better by making stingier laws on the storage of weapons 

Assuming you meant 'stricter', I agree fully with that.  We have such laws for storage and transport in Massachusetts, and it's no big deal to adhere to them.

and send cops make yearly or by-yearly surprise visits to see if the weapons are properly stored in a similar fashion fire departments check smoke detectors.

I know a fair number of cops. None of them would participate in such home inspections.

Besides which, there aren't enough cops to get this done.

[epronovost]

I know a fair number of cops. None of them would participate in such home inspections.

Besides which, there aren't enough cops to get this done.

Fire departments could be used for it too since they are already inspecting houses.

[jerry mcmasters]

Every summer in Australia we have a few too many children dying of heatstroke after being left locked up in hot cars.
Every year here, over 5,000 children are rescued after being left unattended in a car.  The excuses these parents
give are fucking disgusting, with many simply claiming to have "forgotten" they'd left the kids in carparks while shopping,
drinking or gambling, or that they had a "busy schedule", were "stressed", or were "exhausted".

On a hot day, the interior of a car can easily be more than 30ºC higher than outside, which could be 40ºC.  And 70ºC is
equal to around 160ºF.  Parents are very seldom even charged with manslaughter here, but there was one recent case
where a mother was actually charged with the murder of her two children, for the "reckless indifference to human life".

5000 a year in Australia?  Damn, I don't even want to google the US on that.

[Chas]

I know a fair number of cops. None of them would participate in such home inspections.

Besides which, there aren't enough cops to get this done.

Fire departments could be used for it too since they are already inspecting houses.

Fire departments only do that when the property is built, remodeled, or transferred.

And they do not have police powers.

[SYZ]

Every summer in Australia we have a few too many children dying of heatstroke after being left locked up in hot cars.
Every year here, over 5,000 children are rescued after being left unattended in a car...

5000 a year in Australia?  Damn, I don't even want to google the US on that.

I need to clarify my comment.  I meant not that 5,000 children died, but that
there were that number of call-outs to police about kids locked in cars
who were suffering heat stroke or dehydration.  I couldn't find any Australian
statistics, but according to KidsAndCars.org, 53 children died in hot cars in the
US last year, with an average number of deaths per year at 39 since 1990, or
one every 9 days.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's illegal to leave an animal in such conditions in most places in the US.

[epronovost]

It's illegal to leave an animal in such conditions in most places in the US.

As it fucking should. No animal, people or ice cream should ever be left in a car transformed in a furnace.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Without the gun lobby getting involved the at-fault parties do get punished.