On today’s episode of Your Vehicle is Not a Gun Safe, tragedy struck:
Police have released more information about the shooting of 5-year-old outside a Wendy’s restaurant in North Carolina on Sunday. The boy is in critical condition after being shot in the face, according to WGHP.
The boy, described as about 5 years old, was inside a booster seat and unbuckled himself as his mother pulled up to the drive-thru, according to Randleman police.
The child was able to get a .45 semi-automatic handgun from a pocket on the back of the car’s front passenger seat. The gun went off and the child was shot in the face, police said.
So, what was the gun doing there? According to multiple news reports it was the result of a recent car-cleaning, although what a handgun has to do with cleaning a car is beyond me. Gun-free zones like workplaces and post offices add to the problem by requiring people to disarm, but that wasn’t the case here.
The gun belonged to the boy’s father who said he put it in the back pocket of the front seat while vacuuming two days earlier, according to police. Police said he forgot about the gun and the mother did not know it was there.
This is an utterly horrific way to learn this lesson. The most recently available news of the boy states he remains in critical condition.
The boy was transported to Randolph Health before being flown to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he is in critical condition. Officials did not release the boy’s name, WGHP reported.