Child Killed By 10-Year-Old Playing With Gun

A 10-year-old child killed a 6-year-old child Wednesday while playing with a gun in Togiak, Alaska, according to NBC-affiliate KTUU Friday.

Alaska State Troopers and Village Police said they responded to reports of a 6-year-old child being shot by a 10-year-old child in the same home. According to officials, the two children were “playing with an unsecured and loaded .22 caliber firearm” when the firearm went off and the 6-year-old was shot.

Officials did not release the names or genders of the children.

When officials arrived at the scene, they began CPR on the child. They said the child was “unresponsive.” The child was taken to Togiac Clinic where medical professionals continued lifesaving efforts until the victim was pronounced dead.

The State Medical Examiner requested an autopsy on the 6-year-old child’s remains.

Between 2014 and 2016 five children below the age of 12 were killed in Alaska by accidentally shooting themselves or being shot by another child, according to an analysis by the Associated Press and the USA Today Network. According to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alaska has the highest rate of firearm mortality in the United States.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reported Alaska does not have specific laws to punish children for having and/or using firearms. Decisions about whether to prosecute in these situations are made on a case-by-case basis, said Cori Mills, a spokesperson for Alaska’s Department of Law.

According to a study published by the journal Pediatrics, 1,297 United States children died annually from a gun-related injury from 2012 to 2014.

“When you start putting numbers like that to real lives, real people every day who are injured by firearms, it confirms a statistic we already know a lot about,” Dr. Thomas Weister, a trauma surgeon at Stanford University Medical Center, said to CNN in June.

Weiser was not involved in the study.

Experts said parents should follow safety measures when having guns in the home.