ELMO, Mo. AP, January 20, 2015 • A 9-month-old northwestern Missouri boy is dead after his 5-year-old brother playing with a handgun accidentally shot him in the head. Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White says the baby was pronounced dead at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City just before noon on Monday. The Kansas City Star reports that emergency responders were called to a home in Elmo around 9 a.m. Monday after a 5-year-old found a loaded .22 caliber handgun and apparently was handling it when it fired. White says the bullet struck the 9-month-old, who was in a playpen. The sheriff says there is no reason to believe the shooting was anything other than an accident.
There was every reason.
Stupidity.The father was not there.
Absence.
The mother was in the kitchen.
Multi-task.
The baby was in the playpen.
Safety.
The five-year-old found the 22-caliber Magnum revolver.
Curiosity.
It was near a bed.
Paranoia.
It was loaded.
Paranoia.
He pulled the trigger.
Imitation.
The baby died inside his microcosm.
Innocence.
A gun killed a baby brother.
Insanity.
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of five books of poetry and three chapbooks. She lives part-time in Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The rest of the time, she is in the mountains of Western North Carolina.