{"id":5037,"date":"2013-05-02T14:24:35","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T09:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=5037"},"modified":"2013-05-02T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T09:25:09","slug":"5-year-old-kentucky-boy-fatally-shoots-2-year-old-sister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=5037","title":{"rendered":"5-year-old Kentucky boy fatally shoots 2-year-old sister"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"130501225936-dnt-ky-brother-shoots-sister-00002701-story-top\"<\/a>(CNN)<\/strong>\u00a0— A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but it was long enough for her 5-year-old son to accidentally shoot and kill his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said.<\/p>\n

The shooting in southern Kentucky has been ruled an accident, Kentucky State Police Trooper Billy Gregory said.<\/p>\n

“It’s just one of those nightmares,” he said, “a quick thing that happens when you turn your back.”<\/p>\n

Young children in the area are often introduced to guns at an early age, Gregory said.<\/p>\n

“In this part of the country, it’s not uncommon for a 5-year-old to have a gun or for a parent to pass one down to their kid,” he said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, state police were still investigating toddler Caroline Sparks’ death, CNN affiliate\u00a0WLEX<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

Her family kept the Crickett rifle in what they considered to be a safe spot, Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told the CNN affiliate.<\/p>\n

The boy was playing with it Tuesday when it accidentally went off and killed his sister, White said.<\/p>\n

“The little Crickett rifle is a single-shot rifle, and it has a child safety,” White told CNN. “It’s just a tragic situation.”<\/p>\n

Kids and guns: ‘These are not isolated tragedies’<\/a><\/p>\n

The Crickett website features three .22-caliber rifle models for kids, with shoulder stock colors ranging from pink to red, white and blue swirls. “My first rifle” is the company’s slogan.<\/p>\n

Family members Wednesday described the shooting as an accident.<\/p>\n

“He just picked (the gun) up before he realized it,” grandmother Linda Riddle told WLEX.<\/p>\n

Riddle said her granddaughter enjoyed singing and playing outdoors, and she loved her brother.<\/p>\n

“It’s just tragic,” uncle David Mann told the CNN affiliate. “It’s something that you can’t prepare for.”<\/p>\n

Riddle said she is devastated, but comforted knowing that her granddaughter is in a better place.<\/p>\n

“It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess,” she told WLEX. “I just know she’s in heaven right now and I know she’s in good hands with the Lord.”<\/p>\n

Caroline\u00a0<\/strong>Sparks’ death comes after two other incidents in recent months involving young children shooting others. In early April, a\u00a04-year-old boy in Tennessee shot and killed a 48-year-old woman<\/a>, and just days later,\u00a06-year-old Brandon Holt<\/a>\u00a0was killed in New Jersey after being shot in the head by his 4-year-old playmate.<\/p>\n

Before the play date, the gun talk<\/a><\/p>\n

How young is too young for kids to have guns? Weigh in with your opinion in the comments below.<\/i><\/p>\n

CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet, Laura Batchelor, Julia Talanova, Alanne Orjoux and Julie In contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(CNN)\u00a0— A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,143,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-usa","category-world","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}