His 33-year-old mother died shortly after she was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday morning.
In a tragic unfolding of events in South Carolina, a three-year-old shot his mother to death on Wednesday morning. The incident happened before his grandmother's eyes, reports ABC News. Police were called to Spartanburg County at 4750 S. Pine St. around 7:42 a.m. They discovered the victim, 33-year-old Cora Lyn Bush, her mother, and her child inside the house. The child, whose identity has been kept anonymous, found a gun inside the home and accidentally shot his mother. The grandmother witnessed the whole incident and her statement matched the evidence found inside the home, the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
Bush was taken to the hospital and died before 10 a.m. on Wednesday, per USA Today. The investigation is ongoing, but authorities believe the shooting was unintentional. According to the sheriff's office, the gun was unsecured, which is how the toddler gained access to it. The Sheriff's department wrote in a statement on Facebook, "Although our investigation remains active, all indications are this incident was a result of the young child gaining access to an unsecured firearm, which resulted in the mother being accidentally shot and later passing away at the hospital."
South Carolina 3-year-old accidentally shoots, kills mother after gaining access to unsecured gun, police say https://t.co/cjlLiJqggC
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 23, 2022
According to statistics compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a group aiming to reduce gun violence, in 2022, about 200 children unintentionally discharged a gun they found, resulting in more than 80 deaths. In a similar incident, a nine-year-old boy fatally shot a 15-year-old girl while playing with a firearm. As we reported earlier, some neighborhood children were playing on a porch in Edmondson Village, Baltimore, when the accident happened. The boy was playing with a loaded gun when it accidentally discharged and struck the head of the girl. The girl, Nykayia Strawder, died while on the way to the hospital.
A South Carolina mother was fatally shot by her 3-year-old who accessed an unsecured gun.
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) September 22, 2022
South Carolina doesn’t require secure storage or penalize gun owners for negligence,, and doesn’t require locking devices to accompany the sale of a firearm. #scpol https://t.co/obhFBJiq4m
The gun was registered to an adult who worked as an armed security guard. According to Nationwide Children's Hospital, millions of children are raised in households where firearms are present, and many of these weapons are kept loaded, unlocked, or both. Every year, firearms kill and injure thousands of youngsters. One in every three houses with weapons also has children. Unfortunately, firearm injuries are among the top four causes of mortality for children aged 10 to 24, with firearm homicide being a leading cause of death in children aged 1 to 9, per C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said, "The absence of guns from children’s homes and communities is the most reliable and effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries in children and adolescents."
References:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/child-accidentally-shoots-kills-mother-sc-home-90381458
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/22/mother-fatally-shot-by-three-year-old/8083025001/
https://www.facebook.com/spartanburgcountysheriff/posts/459633072857084
https://www.mottchildren.org/posts/your-child/gun-safety-and-children
Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images/Douglas Sacha
