The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office continued urging residents to practice safe gun storage Sunday after another accidental shooting involving a Louisville teen.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office again stressed the importance of safe gun storage Sunday following another accidental shooting involving a Louisville teenager.
“We’re once again having to talk about gun safety after another juvenile accidentally shot themselves,” Col. Steve Healey said.
An early morning shooting Sunday marked the third recent self-inflicted accidental shooting involving a juvenile in Louisville.
Healey said it is “incredibly frustrating” to repeatedly see young people injure themselves after gaining access to firearms.
Louisville police said officers responded around 4:36 a.m. Sunday to a shooting in the Park Hill neighborhood on Standard Village Circle.
When officers arrived, they found a teenage boy who had accidentally shot himself in the leg. Emergency crews transported him to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
The sheriff’s office is distributing free gun locks to help prevent accidents like this. Residents can pick up gun locks at the sheriff’s office or at vehicle inspection locations across the city.
“This is about the safety of children,” Healey said.
The office has also shared details about the free gun lock giveaway online.
Healey said some people fail to recognize how critical it is to store guns safely.
“When we look at all the comments and it’s like, ‘I need to be ready to fire right now, I can’t be messing with a gun lock, it’s going to take too much time.’ It doesn’t take too much time when we’re talking about guns getting in the hands of children,” Healey said. “We can support the Second Amendment, and we do support the Second Amendment. But we can still demand safe storage and responsible gun ownership.”
Gun safety is an issue Miss Heartland winner Taylor French Henry strongly supports.
“These are young lives that do matter,” she said.
Henry has already donated hundreds of gun locks to the sheriff’s office, helping launch the gun lock giveaway initiative.
After Sunday’s shooting, she said she hopes families go further by having meaningful conversations with their children and loved ones.
“Having conversations and truly being introspective with yourself about what safety measures were in place before this, where they come into play now and how we prevent this from happening again,” Henry said.
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