According to Maple Heights, Ohio police, 5-year old Princeton Patterson found a loaded gun in his home and shot himself in the head.  They found him dead at the scene.

There is an open question about whether an adult will be charged for failing to properly secure the gun.  A local law professor says state law and how it’s interpreted varies not only by state, but by county.  He suggests, “There are some prosecutors that will say, ‘I don’t need to charge the parents in this case, they are going to beat themselves up and punish themselves much more harshly than I ever could.’ Other prosecutors will look at it and say, ‘We do need to prosecute these cases to teach other parents to be responsible for what it is that they are doing.”

 ““I just know that he was a cool little kid. He’d come over here and play and talk to us,” says a neighbor. “Really, my little brothers’ best friend so they’d go over there and play with him. So, they were crying and hurting last night.”

Source:

Kaylee Remington, “5-year-old Boy in Maple Heights Dies of Self-inflicted Gunshot Wound,” cleveland.com (July 14, 2021).

Will Ujek, “5-year-old Boy Dies from Gunshot Wound in Maple Heights,” wkyc.com (July 14, 2021).