Boy killed playing with gun in US

A boy who found a pistol in his mother's purse has fatally shot himself in the US city of Cincinnati.

A three-year-old boy in the US has fatally shot himself by playing with a pistol he found in his mother's purse, police say.

The boy's mother placed an emergency call in Cincinnati on Thursday to say her son was not getting a pulse. She said she carried the gun in her purse, and had set her purse down after getting home.

Police said the boy was wounded in the chest and pronounced dead at a hospital shortly afterward.

Authorities were working to decide whether anyone should be charged in the case, the second apparently accidental gunshot death of a young person this month in the area.