Arizona Man Was Arrested For Leaving His Granddaughter In The Dessert With A Gun And Telling Her To "Shoot Any Bad Guys"

Rueters- An Arizona grandfather has been arrested and accused of leaving his five-year-old granddaughter alone in the desert with a loaded and cocked .45-caliber handgun and the instruction to "shoot any bad guys," authorities said on Monday.

Paul Armand Rater, 53, was booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix on suspicion of two counts of felony child abuse and one count of felony child endangerment stemming from incident on Sunday night. Deputies said he and the child left their home in Buckeye, about 30 miles (48 km) west of Phoenix, in a pickup truck early on Sunday afternoon and that the girl was reported missing four hours later. 
 
She was eventually located in the desert by her mother and an off-duty firefighter. The child was holding the powerful pistol.

"She was given the gun and told to shoot any bad guys. I don't know how a five-year-old can tell a good guy from a bad guy, but that's what she said she was told", Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told Reuters by telephone. 

Rater was later located at a store where he told deputies the vehicle had broken down and that he had left the girl under a tree in the desert because she was complaining she could not walk anymore, court records showed.

He admitted leaving the girl with his gun, "while he went for a few drinks and a cheeseburger," the sheriff's office said.



Whoa, whoa, whoa, we are locking up grandpas in Arizona now for teaching their granddaughters how to defend themselves in the most Arizonian way possible? That seems like more of a life lesson than an actual crime if you ask me. This grandfather had one job, did he not? That was to protect his daughter's daughter. Unless I am missing something nothing happened to her, right? Looks like that pistol did it's job. See, that's why they are legal in Arizona. They maintain order. No one's messing with someone that's packing heat even if that someone is a little girl that doesn't have the slightest clue where she is or what she's doing. I don't really see what the big deal is here. I kind of just assumed that instead of giving gifts of cash or extra Christmas presents that's grandparents in Arizona just loaded, no pun intended, their grandkids stockings with weaponry. Seems like the most reasonable thing to get them, as a matter of fact. A doll or train set isn't going to very useful in defending themselves from other concealed carrying classmates.

In all seriousness, this is on the mother. That grandfather that just left her daughter in the desert with a loaded gun is only 53 years old. He's not even old enough to be senile. That means he's basically the same person that raised her. How do you not know that you have the type of dad that might fuck around leave your daughter to play 'Lone Ranger' as he throws back a couple cold ones and a cheeseburger? That makes you not only a negligent mother, but a completely oblivious daughter. If your dad was shitty to you when you were a product of his loins then he's bound to be shitty to your kid who he has no state required responsibility to help raise. Not every crappy parent automatically becomes the prototypical awesome grandparent. That shouldn't have been a lesson that this mom needed to learn. At the very least she should have monitored an interaction or two before leaving them alone for some bonding time. Especially when she should have known that her dad's idea of bonding time is dependent on alcohol consumption.