Bang Bang: The Deadliest Game : In latest such accident, 4-year-old shoots his cousin with his father’s pistol

The rash of shooting incidents involving children continues to shock. It’s gotten to the point where gun advocates well may have to change their familiar guns-don’t-kill-people slogan. It would have an even more tragic logic if it read, “Guns don’t kill children, children kill children.”

The latest incident involves two children barely beyond the toddler stage. Three-year-old Marlina Fernandez of Garden Grove survived an accidental shooting by her 4-year-old cousin when the bullet lodged in her sinus cavity, just missing her brain.

The boy had grabbed the gun from beneath his father’s jacket, which the father, Richard Granados, had laid on top of an empty stroller as he took the children for an evening stroll. Granados told investigators he recently bought the .22-caliber gun from a man on the street because he felt he needed protection from gangs.

Also on Wednesday, a 17-year-old Westminster boy died after being shot accidentally in the head earlier this week by a 14-year-old friend--also with a .22-caliber pistol. There is a depressing certainty there will be other tragedies involving children.

Granados, 24, was jailed on $10,000 bail under a year-old state law aimed at gun owners who allow weapons to fall into the hands of children under 14. Gun advocates have criticized the law, saying it singles out gun mishaps when more children are killed in swimming or car accidents.

Be that as it may, the law has been playing at least a small part in making adults more aware of the dangers of leaving loaded weapons where children can find them.

There are simply too many cases these days in which “bang, bang, you’re dead” isn’t just a game.