Over the weekend, a woman in Indiana on a hunting trip was shot in the foot at point-blank range with her own shotgun. There was no one else there, save for some waterfowl and her trusty Labrador retriever named Trigger.

What’s the story here? No one shot her with the shotgun. Rather, her dog shot her when it stepped on the shotgun — placed on the ground, fully loaded, with the safety off. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t even a new concern of careless gun owners. In 2011, a man in Utah was shot by his own dog with his own shotgun. In 2013, another man in Minnesota was shot on his boat by his dog just like, you guessed it, the same circumstances as the Indiana woman. 

Researching any number of “dog-shooting-human” stories will yield the same kind of corny lead about a man being bitten by a dog and the overall message of a careless gun owner. There are certainly more cases just within the time frame of 2010 to 2015 (around six documented cases).

Should we be blaming the dog and instituting new gun control policies for dogs like the trigger-happy Trigger?

Instead, the question needs to be raised on why people think they can be so careless with their weapons in the company of pets. Too often has the same incident happened before where someone puts their loaded gun down to be accidentally fired by their dogs.

We feel that gun owners need to be more responsible with their weapons to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future. 

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of The Kent Stater editorial board, whose names are listed above.