A four-year-old girl in Grovetown, Georgia, was critically injured after accidentally shooting herself in the head Monday when her father left a loaded gun on the floor of their home, police said.
The girl’s father, who was 24-year-old Davion Daniels, placed the 9mm Glock on the floor as he went downstairs to take a call, Grovetown police said. A short time later he heard a shot and ran upstairs. Several others were at the home on Sterlington Drive at the time of the shooting.
Daniels and a family member took the wounded girl to their vehicle and made their way to the hospital, police said. Along the way, they met officers from the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, who then contacted the Grovetown Police Department.
Daniels was arrested for second-degree cruelty to children and possession of a machine gun, police said. He is accused of illegally converting the Glock to be fully automatic. The girl was taken to hospital in critical condition on Monday, police said.
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“This incident was entirely preventable,” Grovetown Police Chief James Kitchens said in a press release.
Grovetown is located in the Augusta metropolitan area.
The nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety has documented more than 120 accidental shootings by children across the United States so far this year, resulting in 53 deaths and 71 injuries as of May 16. At least five of those shootings occurred in Georgia, with four of the shooters under the age of 10, according to the group.
The state has some of the weakest gun laws in the country, according to the nonprofit, which notes that Georgia has no law mandating the safekeeping of firearms to prevent children from accessing them.
Georgia State Rep. Michelle Au introduced the Child Health Care Firearms Safe Storage Act this year, requiring firearms to be safely stored around minors. According to local media reports, however, the bill is not progressing this year.
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