“My son just shot himself, and I’m not getting a pulse,” Elizabeth Green screamed during a call with 911 on Thursday. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I’m not getting a pulse … I don’t think he’s alive!”
Green’s 3-year-old son Marques reportedly shot himself in the chest while playing with a handgun he found in his Ohio home. The boy was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital soon after the emergency call was made.
The gun belonged to Green’s mother who said she typically kept it in her purse. She told the 911 operator that she set the purse down after getting to the house in Butler Country, 30 miles north of Cincincinnati.
While Ohio gun laws can be used to hold parents responsible if their children willfully or maliciously assault another person, there is no law that holds them criminally accountable for injuries caused by not properly securing their guns.
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 2,400 people under the age of 21 have died from unintentional shootings between 1999 and 2010. A 2013 investigation by the New York Times found that number of children killed in accidental gun deaths was twice as high as records indicated. There are no nationwide statistics on the age of a person behind accidental shootings — not even for those that result in deaths.
Laws on holding gun owners responsible for unintentional deaths or injuries caused when children get a hold of guns vary from state to state. Fewer than 20 states have enacted laws that would hold adults criminally liable to secure guns in a manner that would prevent children from having access to them.
While Ohio does not have such a law, a bill to require safe storage was introduced in March that would render it illegal to “store or leave a firearm in a manner or location in the person’s residence if the person knows or reasonably should know that a minor is able to gain access to the firearm.”
While that bill has not yet been voted on, there is a chance that Elizabeth Green will be held accountable for the death of her 3-year-old son.
Mike Gmoser, the country prosecutor in Butler County where Green lives, said that he would take the case to a grand jury which would hear evidence and decide if any charges should be filed.