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American toddlers shooting people on a weekly basis

On Wednesday, two 3-year-old boys were shot by another toddler who found and inadvertently fired a gun at the home of their baby sitter in Dearborn, Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press. The boys, one of whom was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder, are in stable condition at a hospital.

The Dearborn boys are at least the 42nd and 43rd people to get shot by a child younger than 4 this year, according to a database of accidental child-involved shootings maintained by Everytown, a gun violence prevention group. On average, someone gets shot by an American toddler a little more frequently than once a week, similar to previous years.

In many of these shooting cases, a toddler finds a gun and accidentally shoots himself with it – 27 out of the 43 toddler shootings involved self-inflicted injuries. Earlier this month in Ohio, for instance, a 3-year-old boy found his father’s loaded gun in the kitchen and fatally shot himself in the head with it.

But shootings of other people are common, as well. Last weekend in St. Louis, a 2-year-old found a loaded handgun and accidentally shot and killed his father, who was asleep at the time. The day before, in Pennsylvania, a 3-year-old riding in the back seat of a car found a loaded gun and shot his uncle in the shoulder.

Nearly all toddler shootings involve boys. So far this year, there have been just two exceptions. In March, 3-year-old Yasha Ross from Pittsburgh found a loaded gun in the home of a man she was visiting with her mother and fatally shot herself in the chest. Another 3-year-old girl shot herself in the stomach in Georgia in June. She survived.

The youngest toddler involved in a shooting this year was an 18-month-old from Nashville, who police say found a loaded pistol on a bed and shot himself in the face. His injuries were not fatal. So far this year, 17 toddler shootings have ended in a fatality, while 26 resulted in a non-life-threatening injury.