The accidental fatal shooting of a US woman by her two-year-old son at a Walmart store has left her family devastated and again raised questions about gun safety in America.
Veronica Rutledge was out shopping with her son and three nieces on Tuesday in Hayden, Idaho when the child unzipped her handbag - specially designed to carry a concealed weapon - and the gun went off.
The 29-year-old nuclear research scientist, who held a concealed-carry permit, got the bag last week as a Christmas gift from her husband, Colt Rutledge, with whom she shared a passion for guns.
"An inquisitive two-year-old boy reached into the purse, unzipped the compartment, found the gun and shot his mother in the head," her father-in-law Terry Rutledge told The Washington Post.
"It's a terrible, terrible incident."
He added that his son, the victim's husband, is grappling with how to break the news to the youngster, the couple's only child.
"He has a two-year-old boy right now who doesn't know where his mom is and he'll have to explain why his mom isn't coming home," Rutledge said.
Veronica Rutledge was a scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal nuclear research facility in the east of the state, and co-authored a number of published papers.
Rutledge and her husband - who married in 2009 - shared a keen interest in guns, spending time at shooting ranges and going hunting.
About 30,000 deaths a year in the US involve firearms. The majority are suicides; many others are murders. But some involve children laying their hands on loaded weapons.
In 2011 alone, 140 children and teenagers died as a result of an unintentional shooting, more often than not inside a home, according to a study from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Several thousand more sustained non-fatal injuries.
Walmart closed its Hayden location - normally open 24 hours a day - after Tuesday's shooting, which occurred in the electronics department. It reopened on Wednesday.
Coincidentally, the retail chain is the biggest gun retailer in the US, which has seen an uptick in gun-buying in recent years among women looking for greater personal protection.
Fifteen per cent of American women own a gun, according to a Gallup poll analysis.
There has been a corresponding boom in fashionable handbags specially designed to hold a concealed weapon, including a brand called Gun Tote'n Mamas.
Gun dealer Robin Ball, speaking to local TV station KREM, expressed surprise that a two-year-old would have the finger strength required to pull a trigger.
She speculated that the absence of an external safety mechanism - common for many contemporary handguns - might have been a factor.
Largely rural Idaho has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the US, as well as a rate of violent crime below the national average.
And earlier this year, its state legislature passed a law intended to pre-empt the introduction of any new federal gun control laws.
"Accidents like this cause us all to pause and remember that firearm safety is one of those areas where we can never forget the awesome responsibility that comes with gun ownership and must always be aware and living the rules of firearm safety," said Carrie Lightfoot of The Well Armed Woman, a website for female gun owners.
Prospects for tougher gun control laws, however, remain thin.
In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre in December 2012 in which 20 children died, President Barack Obama pushed for universal background checks for all gun-buyers.
But the proposal dramatically collapsed in the face of opposition in congress, as did a bid to outlaw military-style assault rifles.
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