A three-year-old girl accidentally killed her four-year-old sister with a handgun near Houston, Texas, despite the presence of five adults including their parents in their home, police said.
“The three-year-old gained access to a loaded, semi-automatic pistol,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said of the shooting late Sunday.
When family members heard a single gunshot, they ran into a bedroom and found the four-year-old girl on the floor “unresponsive,” he said.
Gonzalez stressed that the shooting appeared unintentional.
“It just seems like another tragic story of a child gaining access to a firearm and hurting someone else,” Gonzalez said.
About 40 percent of US households have guns, according to the Pew Research Center, with most of those also including children.
