3-year-old girl fatally shoots her 4-year-old sister with an unsecured firearm, Texas police say

() — A 3-year-old girl fatally wounded her 4-year-old sister in an accidental shooting in Texas, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.

“This basically involves a 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old girl,” González explained. “The 3-year-old girl is the alleged perpetrator of the shots. It appears that it was accidental.”

Calling the incident “tragic” but “preventable,” the sheriff said a group of family and friends — five adults and the two girls — were hanging out inside a Houston apartment on Sunday. At one point, the girls were left unsupervised in a room because the parents thought the other was watching them, he said.

The 3-year-old girl took a loaded semi-automatic handgun, Gonzalez explained. The family heard a shot and ran into the bedroom, where they found the 4-year-old unconscious on the floor.

“It seems like another tragic story of another child having access to a firearm and doing harm to another person,” Gonzalez said.

Harris County Sheriff Ed González in statements to the press. Credit: KHOU

The official indicated that the investigation is ongoing, noting that in situations like this, it is “highly likely” that someone will face charges for failing to secure the weapon.

This shooting is just the most recent case of a minor using an unsecured firearm causing tragedy. The most prominent case involved a 6-year-old boy who shot his elementary school teacher earlier in the year in Newport News, Virginia; the teacher is recovering.

Between 2015 and 2020 there were at least 2,070 accidental shootings by children under 18 years of age, causing 765 deaths and 1,366 injuries, according to data compiled by Everytown Research & Policy, the research arm of the group that advocates for gun control and against gun violence. According to the organization, in 39% of the cases the aggressor was 9 years old or younger.

According to an article published in 2022 in the academic journal The New England Journal of Medicine, firearm injuries have recently surpassed motor vehicle accidents to become the leading cause of death among people ages 1 to 19 in the United States. On this indicator, the US stands alone among world powers.

“In no other country as large or wealthy are firearm deaths among the top 4 causes of death, let alone the No. 1 cause of death among minors,” wrote one last year. Kaiser Family Foundation study.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that gun owners keep guns locked up and unloaded, and keep ammunition in a separate safe.