5-year-old shoots herself with gun found under granny's pillow

Washington:  A 5-year-old girl in Detroit died after she shot herself with gun found under her grandmother's pillow, the latest casualty from shootings by children across the US.

The handgun was under a pillow in her grandmother's bedroom when the girl came upon it, police said.

The girl, who was with two younger children about midnight on Wednesday, was playing with the weapon when it discharged, police said.

She was fatally wounded, they said.

Her grandmother, who was cooking downstairs at the time of the shooting, was questioned by police and released, CNN quoted Detroit Police Officer Jennifer Moreno as saying. The investigation into the tragedy continues and no charges have been filed.

The victim, identified as Mariah Davis, was pronounced dead on arrival at a Detroit hospital. The other children, ages 1 and 3, were unhurt, police said.

At least six children have shot and killed either themselves or a parent in the United States since April 20. The shootings are not accidents, according to gun violence prevention activist Jonathan Hutson.

"These fatalities are unintentional, but they're not accidental," said Hutson, former spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "They're foreseeable and preventable."

At least 14 states and the District of Columbia have laws that make gun owners criminally liable if they fail to prevent unauthorised access to guns by children, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

But many children are still shot unintentionally, he said.

On average, he said, nine children under age 18 are unintentionally shot in the United States every day. Of those, about seven die each day. Hutson said those numbers have been fairly steady over the past few years.

Twenty-four children under age 4 died from accidental shootings in 2014, the most recent year of data available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data does not distinguish whether those children shot themselves by accident or were shot by someone else.