5-Year-Old Accidently Kills His 2-Year-Old Sister With His Own Patented Kiddie Rifle

A moment of mourning for a 2-year-old little girl who was fatally wounded by her 5-year-old brother. While children accidently shooting one another is a unfortunately a recurring story, this little boy wasn’t tinkering with his parents’ unattended firearm collection. Not in the least. This kid had a rifle of his very own, designed specifically for kids. Record scratch.

The New York Times reports that the incident occurred in rural southern Kentucky as follows:

The children’s mother had stepped out to the front porch in Burkesville for a few minutes Tuesday afternoon, and ”she heard the gun go off,” Gary White, the Cumberland County coroner, said. The girl, Caroline Sparks, was killed by a single shot to the chest fired by her brother, Kristian, the authorities said.

But the kid-friendly rifle is apparently thing. The coroner identified the firearm as a “Crickett,” a company that makes a “little rifle for a kid.” According to him, ”The little boy’s used to shooting the little gun.” But apparently, he’s not all that responsible with storing it:

Mr. White said that the .22-caliber rifle had been kept in a corner and that the family had not realized a bullet was left inside it.

The Crickett website appears to be down at the moment, reportedly due to an influx of visitors, according to the Crickett Firearms attorney John Renzulli. But the company who appears to have prided themselves on making ”quality firearms for America’s youth” has released a statement. Mother Jones, which grabbed a bunch of pictures from the site’s “Kids Corner,”  reports that Renzulli spoke on behalf of the company:

“This is not about Crickett Firearms,” he said. “We need to respect the privacy of these people, this family is going through a lot. We’re not going to analyze and evaluate what happened here until a full investigation has been conducted by law enforcement. At that point we’ll comment.”

Watch the commercial for Crickett Firearms and note the sexist “even mom and daughter can use it!” crap.

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