While the residents will have to bear the cost and inconvenience of replacing a window of a home they worked hard to buy and maintain, the outcome could have been worse.

Will it take a death before slingshots are seen as the lethal weapon they are capable of being?

Some equate slingshots with their own youth, where pre-internet and pre-video game afternoons and weekends were spent aiming at tins, signs and possibly the odd wasp nest or beehive in what many would have considered harmless fun.

Certainly some stores sell them, not that purchase is required to do damage as a home-made slingshot can be as deadly as any.

But it is foolish to discount the dangers of slingshots merely because they are in many cases wielded by children.

While kids are arguably well aware firing a slingshot at a window is wrong, as evidenced in this case by the child hiding his face and both children running from the scene after they were caught red-handed, many may not grasp the idea that their actions could kill. Frustrated police officers can confiscate slingshots but they cannot be everywhere. Parents must be especially vigilant to to ensure their own children are not firing them at people and houses.

And if we see someone else's children firing them, we should report it. Because even though it is expensive and inconvenient, a window or other property damaged by a slingshot can be replaced.

A human life cannot be.