As a lifelong gun owner, here is the problem as I see it. We have all these wingnuts putting guns on a pedestal, stating things to the effect that if you don't carry you are a cowardly weenie. Yet we also have a large population that has never handled guns, or are mentally not capable of handling them safely. So, we have tragedies like this.
No one should be allowed to handle a gun without having first taken a firearms safety course. And if someone mishandles a gun, it should be one strike and you are out. There is no excuse for handling a gun as that father did.
You cannot start off with
"As a lifelong gun owner, here is the problem as I see it." and finish up with that other garbage. You're not a life long gun owner.
I can say whatever I like. And my first gun was a Marlin 32-40. The gun I have used for big game most of my life is a 250-3000 Savage, Model 99E. Everybody on both sides of my family hunted from the time they were children. As a source of food, not sport.
You seem to think nobody but you has any experiance with guns, and that no liberal uses them at all. Two uncles knew far more about guns than you ever will. One fought across North Africa and halfway up the boot of Italy in the Army. The other was a Marine that fought the whole campaign of Okinawa. Were you to mishandle a gun in the presence of either, you would get your ears knocked down, no matter what age you were.
You seem to think that a gun, or guns, is your security blanket. Americans have owned guns from the git-go. And the ones with the gold have owned bigger ones. From Blair Mountain to Ludlow.