Safe storage of firearms is a prerequisite for all gun owners, and most of them fail to follow this protocol. This foolhardiness leads to unprecedented deaths caused by accidental gunshots from a loaded and unlocked gun.
People reported an unfortunate incident whereby a two-year-old boy lies dead at the hospital due to a gunshot wound allegedly triggered by his three-year-old brother, who reportedly found it unlocked in his mother’s purse, per Gary Police Department. Commander Samuel Roberts of the department conducted an interview with People, where he confirmed that no charges have been filed yet and the case is currently under investigation.
This cold-shot case was initiated by a phone call a while before 7:30 p.m. on Friday from Northlake Methodist Hospital, and authorities confirmed to the magazine that the case is still under investigation. Roberts reveals that it is being undertaken by the Lake County Prosecutor’s Homicide Task Force and that the results from the active investigation will land on the prosecutor’s desk.
Via the interview, People reported alleging that the mother spoke to the authorities at the hospital where her son was declared dead, saying that her 3-year-old son happened to come across the gun that was left in her purse and had committed the act when she was out of the room. According to Robert, following the interview with the mother, they secured the scene, which is 2100 block of Georgia Street in Gary.
People reported via statistics that a 2018 survey by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that more than half of U.S. gun owners fail to safely store their arms. Gun safety and storage instruction is abundant on the net, with the Indiana State Police guidelines on the topics being one of them. Their staunch instructions remind gun owners to keep their “unloaded” gun safely secured “separate from the ammunition.”
In an emailed press release to People, complimented by a Facebook post, the Gary Police Department is repeatedly elucidating the importance of gun owners securing their firearms “in a gun box or with a gun lock.” Roberts states to People in hindsight of the tragic incident, “A gun in a purse – that is not in a holster – is very reckless,” adding, “Because anything in the purse might strike the trigger.” He adds to this, saying that a gun may be carried in a purse only if “the purse has a holster built-in, which some do.”
People reported via The Gun Violence Archive that around 1,399 accidental shootings have occurred only this year, with at least three more since the Gary incident Friday in Savannah, N.Y., San Antonio, TX, and Chicago, Ill.