3-year-old kills self with gun in car at Tacoma gas station

A 3-year-old boy shot and killed himself with a gun he
found in a car as a family made a stop early Wednesday at
a gas station, police said.

“The boy found a handgun that was hidden under the front
seat, or next to the front seat, and accidentally shot
himself fatally,” said Tacoma Police Officer Naveed
Benjamin.

It was the third recent shooting of a child in western
Washington.

“It is incredible in light of the other ones,” said
Benjamin. “You would think people would take more care,
not less.”

The family was traveling and had stopped for gas about
12:30 a.m. at the Tacoma station off Interstate 5 at 5407 Tacoma Mall Blvd.

The man put his pistol under the seat and got out to pump
gas while the boy’s mother went inside the station,
Benjamin said.

They reportedly left her son and her boyfriend’s infant
daughter in the car.

The boy climbed out of his child seat, found the gun and
shot himself. He was declared dead at a hospital.

The girl was not injured.

Police say the man has a concealed weapons permit for the
gun his 3-year-old son used. Detectives questioned the
parents and have called the shooting a tragic accident.

The family has not been named. They are not from Tacoma
and their car has Oregon plates.

The shooting follows the death of the 7-year-old daughter
of a Marysville police officer in Stanwood on Saturday
when a sibling found a gun and fired while the parents
were out of their car. And on Feb. 22, an 8-year-old girl
was critically wounded in a Bremerton classroom when a gun
fired from the backpack of a 9-year-old boy as he put it
on a desk.

“It’s another tragedy in a very short period of time,”
Benjamin said. He said it highlights the need for people
to secure guns.

“You can’t predict what children are going to do,”
Benjamin said. “You need to unload and lock it up if
you’re not carrying it.”

“And keep it out of the hands of children,” Benjamin said.
“It’s really not that hard to practice firearm safety.”

The investigation was continuing, and it was unclear if
the man would face any charge.

Washington does not have a law specifically concerning
child access to firearms.

Twenty-seven states have some form of law to prevent child
access to firearms. Such laws can include criminal
penalties for adults who allow children to get their hands
on guns, but Washington is not one of those states,
according to the San Francisco-based group Legal Community
Against Violence.

State lawmakers considered a measure in the regular
legislative session that ended Friday that would have
required additional testing of gun locks and safes before
the equipment is distributed to law enforcement officers
for home use. The bill was prompted by the 2010 death of a
Clark County deputy’s 3-year-old son. The toddler took a
gun from a department-issued safe, which the family
insisted was faulty.

A spokesman for the Second Amendment Foundation said
existing laws are enough to encourage gun safety, as long
as the gun owners obey them.

“Responsible people will maintain gun safety whether there
is a law or not; irresponsible people will ignore the
law,” said Dave Workman, senior editor of the group’s
publication, called thegunmag.com. He said existing
statutes, including child endangerment laws, were designed
to prevent such tragedies.

Workman said what he can’t figure out is why the two men
left their guns in their vehicles when they were licensed
to carry them.

“Most responsible gun owners, especially if they’re
licensed to carry, will keep their firearm with them,”
Workman said.

News of the latest shooting caused Washington Cease Fire
Executive Director Gregory Roberts to groan, “Oh no.”

“We think guns are dangerous, but they are not treated as
dangerous by our society or by laws or by our
regulations,” he said. “We regard guns as some sort of
sacred object that should not be subject to regulation.”

The Seattle organization is currently running a campaign
of ads on buses urging people to think twice about owning
guns. People with guns in their home or car are more
likely to injure or kill a family member or loved one than
to use it against an intruder, he said.

“Unfortunately we’ve been saying the same thing over and
over because we see the same thing happening over and
over,” Roberts said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.