Sunday night a 3-year-old Lebanon, Tennessee girl died after fatally shooting herself in the stomach with a loaded handgun.
According to Fox News, the stepfather said that he pulled out the handgun when he thought he heard a prowler outside. He said that instead of putting the gun away, he left the weapon on the living room end table--apparently with the safety still turned off.
Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe said that the mother was in the same room when the girl picked up her stepfather's .380 caliber pistol and unloaded the ammo into her abdomen. The mother told investigators that her 3-year-old daughter may have thought that the weapon was a controller for the Nintendo Wii console.
"The child had been playing a Nintendo Wii video game, Ashe said," reports The Tennessean. "The game’s controller was shaped like a gun that looked very similar to the real handgun, which her stepfather had put on a table in the living room."
After discharging the gun, the girl was rushed to the University Medical Center in Lebanon where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. Currently no charges have been filed against the parents, but there's a good chance that will change within the next few days.
The whole issue of the girl confusing the gun with a Wii controller should be thrown out the window. Little children are curious, and will even dig through the contents of a trashcan in search of hidden treasures. It's in their nature. Leaving an armed weapon within the child's reach is pure negligence no matter what the resident Wii controller looks like. Games aren't the blame here: bad parenting is.
Although, why the girl was pointing what she thought was a gun-controller at her abdomen in the shooting direction to begin with, is a mystery.
Source : http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nintendo-wii-wiimote-game,news-6053.html
According to Fox News, the stepfather said that he pulled out the handgun when he thought he heard a prowler outside. He said that instead of putting the gun away, he left the weapon on the living room end table--apparently with the safety still turned off.
Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe said that the mother was in the same room when the girl picked up her stepfather's .380 caliber pistol and unloaded the ammo into her abdomen. The mother told investigators that her 3-year-old daughter may have thought that the weapon was a controller for the Nintendo Wii console.
"The child had been playing a Nintendo Wii video game, Ashe said," reports The Tennessean. "The game’s controller was shaped like a gun that looked very similar to the real handgun, which her stepfather had put on a table in the living room."
After discharging the gun, the girl was rushed to the University Medical Center in Lebanon where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. Currently no charges have been filed against the parents, but there's a good chance that will change within the next few days.
The whole issue of the girl confusing the gun with a Wii controller should be thrown out the window. Little children are curious, and will even dig through the contents of a trashcan in search of hidden treasures. It's in their nature. Leaving an armed weapon within the child's reach is pure negligence no matter what the resident Wii controller looks like. Games aren't the blame here: bad parenting is.
Although, why the girl was pointing what she thought was a gun-controller at her abdomen in the shooting direction to begin with, is a mystery.
Source : http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nintendo-wii-wiimote-game,news-6053.html
