Illinois girl, 12, dies after accidentally shooting herself while playing with mum's gun
Illinois girl, 12, dies after accidentally shooting herself while playing with mum's gun
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A 12-year-old girl has tragically died after accidentally shooting herself in the stomach. Priscilla McCullough was playing with her mother's firearm at the family home in South Shore, Chicago, Illinois, when it discharged, hitting her in the abdomen at around 6.50pm on Sunday. Her 11-year-old sister, who was eating in the kitchen, went to check on Priscilla and found her bleeding on the floor.
The sister took the gun to their mum, who was reportedly bathing her one-year-old in the bathroom. At that point, the child asked her mum: "Is this real?" According to police, the distraught girl's mum, 42, told them she had tried to stem the bleeding and told her younger daughter to call 911.
Priscilla was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition, but was sadly pronounced dead at 7.24pm, according to the medical examiner's office. An autopsy was carried out, but it was inconclusive. According to reports, the mum told officers that her gun was usually kept in a locked safe in a bedroom.
According to John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, gun deaths remain the leading cause of death for children and teens with people of colour disproportionately affected. The issue of gun ownership and regulation remains a highly partisan issue and as debates continue to rage, children continue to die. On July 25, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis.
In his first term as president, Donald Trump loosened restrictions on who can buy guns by narrowing the definition of "fugitive from justice" that is used to determine who is barred from buying a gun and purging 500,000 records from the federal background check system. But despite the bleak headlines around gun-related incidents, especially in cities like Chicago, there are some reasons for hope.
