A South Carolina mother, Cora Lyn Bush, was shot and killed by her three-year-old son last Wednesday. According to police, the gun was unsecured and the child fired it accidentally.
According to the Spartanburg County Coroner’s office, Cora Lyn Bush passed away in a hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Spartanburg deputies responded to a call about a shooting incident at a home at about 7:45 am on Wednesday. When they arrived, they discovered Cora Bush, her three-year-old, and Cora’s mother, in the house.
After paramedics transported Bush to the hospital, her mother told the police what had happened. In a statement, the police said that her account of the shooting matched the evidence found in the house and the victim’s injuries.
The police statement says that although the police investigation remains active, everything points to the story that the child gained access to the unsecured firearm, which unfortunately led to the mother being accidentally shot and later dying in the hospital.
Every Town Research, an American organization committed to ending gun violence, presented recent data showing that there were 194 accidental shootings by children in the US in 2022 alone. Eighty-two people died from accidental shootings, and123 others were injured.
In their analysis, they confirmed that every year, hundreds of children find firearms in the US and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else.
The statistics are alarming.
The organization collects information and data from news reports about minors who unintentionally fire a gun and harm themselves or someone else. They collect information about the ages of the shooter and victim, type of firearm, location of the incident, and the date it happened.
The organization attempts to raise awareness about gun violence affecting minors by compiling reports that make people understand why these unintentional child shootings happen and how to prevent them.
The “Be Smart” campaign was launched by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense to raise awareness of safe gun storage and how people can save their children’s lives by storing their guns unloaded and locked and keeping the ammunition separate.
Data collected from 2015 to 2022 shows that there were 2,070 accidental shootings by children and 765 people lost their lives. The number of shootings was alarming in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From March to December 2020, almost 400 kids unintentionally fired guns, and at least 125 children aged five and below found loaded guns and shot themselves or others.
