A 3-year-old boy died after discovering a gun on his parent's nightstand that he accidentally shot himself with.
USA Today reported on the story and said that Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said that the boy's older sister, age 16, was at home with the 3-year-old and their brother, who is 7. She was home with them while her parents went to the grocery store. During that time, the 3-year-old accidentally shot himself in the head with the gun.
The Volusia County Sheriff's Office said that there were two 9-1-1 calls made around 6:22 pm on Wednesday. One of the calls came from the boy's older sister, who had called her father, and the other came from her father.
USA Today reports that sheriffs arrived at 6:29 pm and attempted to perform life-saving measures on the boy. Paramedics transported the child to a nearby hospital, but the boy was pronounced deceased at 7:03 pm.
The gun belonged to the boy's father. The sheriff's office reported that the youngest child went into his parent's bedroom and retrieved the gun from a nightstand in the room. The father told the media that he typically keeps the gun stored safely in a locked case in the bedroom, but he happened to throw the gun just into a nightstand on this particular occasion. He said that he put one gun on the nightstand and another on top of the refrigerator after the electronic locks on his gun safe stopped functioning.
The Florida Attorney's Office will ultimately decide whether the boy's parents will face charges. That office must consider all factors related to how charges might compound grief after an event like this. They will also consider how much negligence might have been shown in this case.
The sheriff has already stated that he couldn't imagine "anything in the law books that can punish that family more than what happened last night." He feels that it is beyond the ability of most to understand what kind of grief these individuals must be going through. However, parents have been charged in similar cases.
Another case was when a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed himself in Gainesville. His parents were charged with the unsafe storage of a firearm and the manslaughter of their child. Therefore, it is fair to say that these parents might also potentially face charges.
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