5-Year-Old Shoots Herself Accidentally While Playing With Loaded Handgun Her Dad Left On A Table


Haley Moore, a five-year-old girl from Laplace, Louisiana, shot herself accidentally on Saturday after she found a loaded.45 caliber handgun that her father left on a table.

According to WVUE, the little girl found the loaded gun her father left on the table while he showered. She was apparently playing with the gun when it went off.

The incident happened at about 9:45 a.m. on Country Club Drive, according to police in Laplace.

Haley died of her injuries at the hospital.

The incident shocked neighbors deeply. Many learned of the tragic incident after they heard sirens in the neighborhood.

“It is very heartbreaking, very, very heartbreaking,” said Mary Breaux, a resident of Country Club Drive.

According Joy Ursin, who lives next door to the Moores, Eric Moore was in the shower when his daughter Haley found the gun and shot herself.

“The oldest kid, she told me because they came over to us when all this happened,” she told WVUE. “She’s traumatized, ‘my sister, my sister shot herself.'”

Ursin said she was shocked but she tried her best to comfort the two older siblings while their father Eric called for help.

She described Eric as a devoted father who was always vigilant and painstaking about firearms safety.

“When the kids are there, I know he’d always say that he has a designated area where he puts firearms away,” Ursin said. “I mean he’s a retired veteran.”

“It’s definitely sad when something like this happens,” said another neighbor Devon Labat, “especially to someone so young.”

According to Labat, Eric, who is recently divorced, had served in Iraq. The family had lived on Country Club Drive for four years, according to Labat.

Details of the incident provided by the sheriff’s office were scanty, WVUE reports. It remains a mystery exactly how Haley found the gun and shot herself. The sheriff’s office did not confirm who owned the gun or if police were planning to file charges.

But some neighbors thought the incident should raise a discussion about parents keeping guns in a home with young children.

“The gun should’ve been locked up but at the same time, you should, I think that from an early age, getting children familiar with them and enough to know it’s not a toy is the biggest thing,” a neighbor said.

There has been focus recently on cases of children, including toddlers, shooting themselves or members of their families accidentally.

toddler with gun
There has been focus lately on tragic incidents in which toddlers shoot themselves or family members [Image via Shutterstock]
According to a report by the Washington Post, the incidence of children shooting themselves or a member of their family is higher than realized. Police records show that toddlers shot and killed at least 23 people during the first four months of 2016.

The media reported earlier in the year on the case of a 31-year-old Florida mother and gun-rights advocate, who was shot accidentally by her 4-year-old son while she was driving.

Jamie Gilt was driving her truck when her son found her loaded gun in the vehicle. The gun was not in a holster and there was no trigger lock on it at the time, according to the Huffington Post.

Gilt had reportedly placed the gun under the front seat while she drove. But the gun apparently slid out from under the seat. Her 4-year-old son, who was seated in a booster seat, found the gun on the floorboard behind the front seat after he had unbuckled his seat belt.

He picked up the gun, a Springfield XD Compact, and while playing with the gun it went off accidentally. The bullet passed through the back of the driver’s seat and hit Jamie in the back.

Jamie was lucky to survive being shot in the back with the bullet exiting through her chest.

A similar incident happened more recently in Milwaukee. A toddler also found a handgun in the back of the car while his mother drove.

He shot her fatally from the backseat.

[Image via Jan Hrdonka/Wikimedia/Public Domain]

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