Mother in Detroit, Michigan, charged under safe storage law after 2-year-old boy accidentally shot himself with unsecured handgun

Amoya Black, 26, of Detroit, has been charged with violating Michigan’s firearms safe storage law, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. Her charges, as listed in a separate report, include firearms safe storage violations, premises under individual’s control, minor present, and inflicted serious impairment of a body function upon self or another. The prosecutor’s office announced the charges on Thursday.

The shooting happened about 8 a.m. on a Tuesday at a home in the 12900 block of Evergreen Road, near the Jeffries Freeway on Detroit’s west side. A 2-year-old boy was found with a gunshot wound to the stomach and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was initially listed in critical condition. A 4-year-old who was also at home was not hurt.

Prosecutors said the unsecured handgun was in a bedroom. Police said Black was in the kitchen cooking breakfast when she heard a loud pop. One report says the sound came from the bedroom, and another says the 2-year-old had found the unsecured weapon there and accidentally shot himself in the stomach. The gun was registered to Black, and she did not have a concealed pistol license, which one report says was not required for a weapon kept in her home.

Black was scheduled to be arraigned at 10:30 a.m. Thursday before Magistrate Delphia Burton in the 36th District Court in Detroit. A later report says she was arraigned in that court on one count of Firearms Safe Storage Violations, Minor Present and Inflicted Serious Impairment of a Body Function. That report says she will be released from jail on a $50,000 personal bond and that the charge could send her to prison for a decade.

The reports differ on the boy’s current condition. The earlier reports said he was initially listed in critical condition. A later report, citing his family, says he is in stable condition and doing much better, and that bullet fragments were removed from his stomach. That report also says prosecutors say the boy got hold of the gun, but the text of that account ends before giving further detail.

Child safety depends on keeping a loaded weapon out of a toddler’s reach, a plain lesson about protecting the young from harm (Psalm 82:3).