A Seattle mother was taken to the hospital in January after her preschool-age child found an unsecured and loaded shotgun in the family car and accidentally shot her from the back seat. Now NBC News reports that a Seattle mother, eight months’ pregnant, is in stable condition after being accidentally shot in the face by her 4-year-old son. The extent of her injuries and whether or not she is out of the woods were not immediately reported.
According to the the report, the boy was in his parents’ bedroom, with his father and mother lying on the bed watching television, when the child “found a loaded, unsecured handgun between the bed’s box spring and the mattress.” Police told NBC News that the shooting was unintentional. The Washington Post reports that the father borrowed the gun from a friend, and was now being investigated for not securing the gun and “putting somebody at risk.”
Gun ownership in America is a public health issue, because the majority of households with legal firearms are not safe. They aren’t safe because having a gun in one’s home is considerably less safe than not having a gun. And as recent analysis has shown, almost 85 percent of households with firearms (and children) do not properly secure those firearms in a lock box or safe. So for every person that tells you how secured they keep their firearm/s in their home, there about 8 or 9 others who don’t.