Daily Press

CARELESS WITH FIREARMS

The shooting of a little child on Washington avenue Monday evening while an effort was being made to shoot an alleged mad dog, should teach all persons who have the right to carry firearms a lesson in caution. Under the most favorable conditions this thing of blazing away on the public highways is not exactly the proper caper, except in supreme emergencies. When the streets are thronged with the six o'clock crowd such action becomes doubly dangerous and should not be indulged in unless there is no other way out of the dilemma, and then only with great caution.

Had the bullet which struck the little girl proved fatal we have no doubt that the gentleman who fired it would have been filled with remorse and poignant regret. We have no doubt that he feels great sorrow that his careless shot inflicted a painful wound upon the child. These sentiments, however, do not cure the injury nor would it restore to life a person killed in a promiscuous attack upon an animal supposed to be suffering from the rabies.

The point we make is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in such cases as that, and the man who cannot hit a dog at close quarters had better keep his pistol in his pocket, especially when the street is thronged with men, women and children. The pistol is no respecter of persons and one excited man with a six-shooter might do as much harm as a drove of dogs.