Johnston County man charged in death of son shot while playing with father’s gun
A Johnston County man faces a criminal charge after his 2-year-old son fatally shot himself after finding a loaded gun in his father’s truck.
Warren Tyler Oser is charged with failure to properly and safely store a firearm to protect a minor, District Attorney Susan Doyle said in a statement Monday.
Oser is accused of violating North Carolina General Statute 14-315.1, which states that a person can be found guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor for leaving a loaded firearm where an unsupervised minor can knowingly access it and cause personal injury.
The toddler, Warren Bennett Oser, died from a single gunshot wound after finding his father’s loaded Smith & Wesson 40 caliber handgun in the front seat of his father’s truck on Oct. 15.
The child climbed into a pickup truck through an open door and discharged the firearm while playing with it, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office said previously.
“My heart goes out to the parents as they grieve the loss of their son,” Doyle said in a statement. “These tragedies are 100% preventable by safely storing all weapons away from minor children as required by statute. This is not about the rightful ownership of guns. This is about the responsibility of gun owners to protect minors by ensuring all weapons are kept safely away from children.”
Child gun fatalities in NC
The firearm death rate for children in North Carolina doubled between 2019 and 2020, according to the N.C. Child Safety Task Force. It reported 105 children died from firearms in 2020 and hundreds more were injured.
In a May 2022 report, the task force reported 21 unintentional firearm deaths among children up to 17 years old between 2016 and 2020. It recommended funding a $155,000 two-year statewide firearm safe storage awareness initiative.
More than half of gun owners in a 2016 Johns Hopkins University study reported storing at least one gun unsafely, according to the May report.
This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 4:33 PM.
