Three Shootings by Young Kids in Texas in One Week

2-year-old dead; 5-year-old, 7-year-old wounded
By Ruth Brown,  Newser Staff
Posted May 12, 2013 4:01 PM CDT
Three Shootings by Young Kids in Texas in One Week
   (Shutterstock)

It has been a bad week for kids in Texas, with three shootings involving children under 10 years old, one of them fatal, taking place in the space of four days, Raw Story reports. On Wednesday, a five-year-old shot his seven-year-old brother with an old rifle while the two played unsupervised in the bath. On Thursday, a two-year-old fatally shot himself in the head with his dad's handgun, while his father was busy elsewhere in the room, says Raw Story. And yesterday, an eight-year-old shot his five-year-old friend in the head with a rifle, as the two played alone in a bedroom. The boy is in a critical condition in hospital, the Denton Record-Chronicle reports.

Two of the guns used were .22-caliber rifles, similar to the one with which a five-year-old accidentally killed his two-year-old sister in Kentucky earlier this month. The grandfather of the children spoke out this week, saying his grandson was too young to have a gun and that it was a cultural problem in rural Kentucky. "Too many people think it's (guns) for target practice. Well, what comes after target practicing—killing. I know, I was in the Marine Corps," he told the Star Democrat. “When you pick this (gun) up, you're usually going to kill something." (More shooting stories.)

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