A 7-year-old boy died on Saturday when he was shot by his father in an apparent accident outside a Mercer County gun shop, state police said. Joseph V. Loughrey, 44, was getting into his truck holding a .9mm Taurus handgun when it discharged. The bullet struck his son, Craig Allen Loughrey, 7, in the chest, state police said. The boy died at the scene.
“I know that little kid was everything to him,” said Mark McLaughlin of Fredonia, a friend and co-worker of Loughrey’s at Superior Well Services in Fredonia.
State police said Loughrey told them he had emptied the magazine of the gun, but had no idea a bullet was still in the chamber.
The common denominator in all of these cases is a gun. I can't help but to think that if they had been walking out of a Baskin-Robbins with ice cream cones, this wouldn't have happened.