Walmart shooting tragedy unlikely to alter gun support in Idaho

People stand inside in a Hayden, Idaho, Walmart, where a 2-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother to death. People stand inside in a Hayden, Idaho, Walmart, where a 2-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother to death. Photo: Tess Freeman / Associated Press Photo: Tess Freeman / Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Walmart shooting tragedy unlikely to alter gun support in Idaho 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

SPOKANE, Wash. — Concealed weapons are part of everyday life in Idaho, and that’s unlikely to change in the Mountain West state despite a shocking accident in which a 2-year-old boy reached into his mother’s purse, grabbed her gun and shot her in the head inside a Walmart.

Veronica Rutledge was shopping Tuesday morning with her son and three nieces in Hayden, Idaho, when the young boy got ahold of the small-caliber handgun. It discharged one time, killing her, Kootenai County sheriff’s spokesman Stu Miller said.

Miller said the boy, Rutledge’s only child, had been left in a shopping cart with the purse. The 29-year-old Rutledge had a concealed weapons permit.

About 7 percent of adults in Idaho had concealed weapons permits at the end of 2012, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center in Swarthmore, Pa. That ranked Idaho among the top third of states.

Kootenai County, which has about 140,000 residents, has issued close to 16,000 concealed weapons permits, Miller said Wednesday.

“It’s very commonplace in northern Idaho for folks to have a concealed weapons permit,” Miller said, and most businesses do not prohibit firearms.

Guns were a big part of Rutledge’s life.

“She was not the least bit irresponsible,” her father-in-law, Terry Rutledge said. He complained about people using the incident to attack his daughter-in-law.

Terry Rutledge told the Washington Post that Veronica Rutledge and her husband practiced at shooting ranges and each had a concealed weapons permit. He said for Christmas this year, her husband gave her the purse with a special zippered pocket for a concealed weapon.

She was an employee of the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho, where she was a nuclear scientist.