I dunno know if it's a Southern thing, really. We had a neighbor kid shoot a window of our still-being built house in South Dakota, and I think we were one of the few families in the area that DIDN'T have a BB gun.
I was more referring to the practice of shooting
people with BB guns.
On a slightly seperate note, I'm betting that if this had happened to the dad when he was growing up, there wouldn't have been such a fuss made over it. I mean, when I think about how I was raised and compare it to the way society expects children to be raised these days, there's a huge disconnect. Some people, like my father, are still stuck in the earlier mentality.
For instance, when I last visited my family, my father wanted to take my kids somewhere. I told him that he couldn't because the carseats were elsewhere, and two of my kids still need them. Dad couldn't understand. I remember riding in the back windsheild of the car or sitting in the floorboard, using the seat cushion as a table. Dad remembers that, too, and can't see how things are so different now that letting me ride that way was OK but letting my kids do it isn't.
Ditto letting the kids play outside unattended for hours at a time--usually in unfenced areas with the admonishon to "be in before dark".
Ditto letting us play "Cowboys and Indians" or "Cops and Robbers" with BB guns. Heck, the neighbor boys and I once played a version where I didn't get a gun, but I got a horse--bareback, halter only--and they tried to shoot me while I tried to trample them. The rule was I'd kick the ever-living crap out of them if they ever shot my horse.
Anyway, my only point is that child safety and child abuse have morphed over time, and what was once accepted is no longer. This father sounds like someone who just wasn't thinking, and was probably raised in a time and place where most people would have had a laugh at what he did, not throw him in jail.
On the other hand, I think our changes in what constitutes child safety are, for the most part, good changes, and that failing to give your child the minimum safety expected by current societal norms can and will get you into big trouble.
He should have known better than to do it.
