Shooting in car was child endangerment

How could a 2-year-old shoot his grandmother in the back with a .357 handgun? Sadly, with so many guns and irresponsible gun owners in this nation, it doesn’t require much imagination.

In fact, it happened Sunday in Rock Hill. A 2-year-old boy, sitting in the back of a car driven by his great-aunt, found a loaded .357 revolver in a pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. Picking up the gun, he accidentally pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit his 40-year-old grandmother in the back as she sat in the front passenger seat.

Fortunately, the wound apparently was not life-threatening, and the woman was transported to a Charlotte hospital for treatment. However, it is easy to envision numerous worse outcomes, including the death of the child himself.

Rock Hill police said they have not decided whether anyone will be charged in this incident. But laws might have been broken.

For one, the 2-year-old was wearing a seat belt but was not strapped in a car seat, as required by law. If he had been in a regulation car seat, he might not have been able to reach the gun.

For another, when traveling in a vehicle with a gun, owners who don’t have a concealed weapons permit are required by law to properly stow the weapon. Handguns must be secured in the glove box, the well in the center console, the trunk or in baggage inside a separate secure container.

The owner of the .357 handgun, the great-aunt, apparently left the gun hanging in a pouch on the back of the front passenger seat, directly in front of the toddler.

This is a story about child endangerment and the apparent irresponsibility of the adults in charge of taking care of the child. People would be outraged if a 2-year-old were left alone in a car on a hot day or driven around without any safety restraints.

But allowing a toddler to gain access to a loaded gun is even worse.

We can offer the usual bromides about gun safety. Gun owners need to keep their guns locked up and, preferably, unloaded, where children can’t get to them.

The Rock Hill Police Department will provide free gun locks to anyone who asks for them.

But research by groups lobbying for stronger gun laws suggests that despite such advice as many as 100 girls and boys aged 14 and under are killed accidentally by guns in the U.S. each year. That, of course, doesn’t account for the number wounded by the unintentional discharge of guns.

One might say the groups presenting that research have an ax to grind. But the National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied Congress to suppress research by federal agencies that might provide verifiably accurate, impartial figures.

Professional groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have proposed that doctors be allowed to advise patients about the importance of gun safety measures in the home. But that, too, has been strongly opposed by the NRA.

We have federal laws to prevent children from becoming locked in refrigerators. We have laws to ensure that playground equipment is safe. Doctors are free to urge parents to lock up poisons or prescription drugs so their young children can’t gain access to them.

We can’t simply shrug our shoulders and say there is nothing more we can do to keep guns out of the hands of curious 2-year-olds.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 1:02 AM with the headline "Shooting in car was child endangerment."