Houston Area Children are Dropping Like Flies Thanks to Guns in the Home

The Guardian

Six-year-old boy in critical condition on Monday after Codrick Beal, four, and unnamed three-year-old fatally shot themselves in earlier incidents.

Three young children have been shot accidentally in the Houston area in the past four days, two fatally from self-inflicted gunshots.

In the latest incident, a six-year-old boy was taken to hospital in critical condition after being shot by his five-year-old brother on Monday morning in north-east Harris County, police told reporters.

On Sunday, Codrick Beal, four, shot himself with a gun he found while staying with a family friend at a house in a northern suburb, while his mother celebrated her birthday.

Beal’s death followed that of an unnamed three-year-old boy, who died after shooting himself in the head at home in north-western Harris County on Friday afternoon.

“It’s just a terrible accident,” Leticia Beal, a cousin of Codrick’s mother, Ashley Beal, told the Houston Chronicle. “We see it all the time on the news but you never think it’ll hit home. It’s the most horrible thing.”

Another four-year-old boy died in a shooting incident in the west Houston suburb of Katy last November. Ryan Welch was shot in the face by a .40-calibre Smith & Wesson pistol found in a closet in the master bathroom of his home next to a BB gun and a machete, the Chronicle reported. It was not clear whether the boy or his six-year-old brother pulled the trigger.

On Monday, the Harris County sheriff’s office said investigations into the two fatal shootings last weekend were ongoing.

“If you are going to keep a firearm in your home it should ALWAYS be stored in a locked safe, gun vault, or storage case AND out of the reach of children,” the office said in a statement.