LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) — A concerning nationwide trend has cropped up close to home: toddlers and elementary-age children with access to guns.
As we've reported, a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot himself Saturday at a home on Broadway Street in Lafayette.
The shooting is the latest in a series of kids with guns over the past month.
About an hour-and-a-half away in Beech Grove, Indiana, a dad was arrested after his 4-year-old son was recorded playing with a loaded gun on Jan. 14.
And at a Virginia elementary school, a 6-year-old student shot a first-grade teacher on Jan. 6.
Aaron Lorton, president of Applied Ballistics, says these accidents are nothing new, but it's unusual to see so many cases clustered so closely together.
"Over the years, I've seen and read multiple accounts of kids accidentally harming themselves; in some cases, dying, as well. ... It's certainly not a new issue or something that's recently cropped up," he says. "With the current environment that we have -- social media and that sort of thing -- everything's more visible than it used to be. That's probably at the heart of why people are more aware of it than they used to be."
Lorton says gun owners must secure their firearms any time they're not actively using them.
He recommends using stand-up safes for long guns and smaller safes for handguns that use an electronic code for entry.
The accidental shooting in Lafayette remains under investigation.
The Tippecanoe County Prosecutor's Office is working closely with Lafayette police, but formal charges have yet to be filed against the parents or any other adults in the home at the time.
