A child in Springfield, Missouri died today in an unintentional shooting, but few details have been reported, including the circumstances of the accident. Not even the child’s age is available.

A neighbor said,  ”[m]y kids play with their kids, and I’m just glad my kids weren’t over there because an accident could happen to anybody.” ”People really just need to think about when they have guns in the house, especially when patterns change,” said a local gunseller. “Whether it’s school patterns, vacation, things like that, it’s one thing to have a gun on you that you take care of.”

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, an 11-year-old was unintentionally shot and killed by his ten-year old brother. According to the report, the boys’ family was visiting relatives whose son was cleaning two 9mm pistols.  The police say that the young man normally keeps his guns in a lockbox but had taken them out to clean them.  Rather than put the guns away when the boys arrived, he hid them somewhere where the boys apparently found them.  No charges will be filed, even though it is unclear why the guns were not unloaded for cleaning. Nor is it clear why the guns couldn’t have been kept under the young man’s control until they could be placed in the lockbox. Finally, of course, if there was a reason why the guns had to be hidden rather than locked up, they certainly could have been cleared of ammunition at that time.

“While a case can be made that the guns should have been placed into a lock box, which was available, the investigation has disclosed that the owner did not want the boys to even see the guns and he made a good faith effort to hurriedly hide them,” the D.A.’s office said in a statement. “Unfortunately, they were discovered and this tragic event occurred.”

In Margate, Florida, a police officer suffered minor injuries when a gun accident occurred inside the local police station.  And a Jackson, Mississippi woman shot herself in the leg when she mishandled a gun in her car.

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