4-year-old shoots 6-year-old after finding gun in home: Manitoba RCMP
A six-year-old boy was rushed to hospital Monday night after being shot by a four-year-old boy on a Manitoba First Nation, RCMP say.
The children were at a home on Peguis First Nation when they found the gun, police said in a Thursday news release. The younger boy discharged the firearm, and the six-year-old was hit by the bullet.
The wounded child was taken to a local hospital in the community, which is about 160 kilometres north of Winnipeg in Manitoba's Interlake region. Police were called by hospital staff around 11 p.m., after the child was admitted.
He was taken to Winnipeg with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, but has since returned home and is recovering, RCMP said Thursday.
After executing a search warrant at the home on Wednesday, officers seized five firearms and ammunition, as well as a crossbow.
A man was arrested and is facing a charge of unlawful storage of a firearm.
Police felt it was important to issue a release about the incident "because we know there's a lot of gun owners in the province," Cpl. Julie Courchaine told CBC.
"It's a reminder of how, if you're not storing your firearm properly, something like this can happen … [that] something bad can happen so quickly, and how this was preventable," the RCMP spokesperson said.
"It could have been quite [a lot] worse."
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