The dead woman was at once a nuclear research scientist and a big fan of guns. She worked for the Department of Energy's Battelle’s Idaho National Laboratory, and has written papers on "topics such as nuclear waste and fuel processing." The gun that her son fired is a 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson semi-automatic. The gun was carried in a purse designed by an Illinois company cutely called Gun Tote'n Mamas—"Finally, concealed carry handbags with fashion, utility and uniquely affordable!" The Idaho boy, who is described as inquisitive and was raised around guns, apparently reached into the very safe Gun Tote'n Mamas bag, unzipped the compartment that concealed the 9-millimeter, pulled the weapon out, and shot his mother right in the head.

The boy's grandfather (from his father's side) is a gun lover who wants society to feel sympathy for his son, who is also a gun lover—“[He] has a 2-year-old boy right now who doesn’t know where his mom is and he will have to explain why his mom isn’t coming home." The grandfather also thinks this is just a tragedy, pure and simple. There is no reason to bring politics into it. A friend of the woman who died from a bullet that put a hole in her head says that she always carried a gun whereever she went, and not for protection—as crime is not a big deal in Idaho—but for the sheer love of the object: the grip, the trigger, the barrel, the bullet. Nothing, it seems, has been said about the 2-year-old's extraordinary marksmanship. The main safety feature on the guns of our day is the pressure (five pounds worth) needed to pull a trigger. An Idaho gun expert blames Murphy's law for the "accident."