On Sunday, February 21, 2016, 62-year-old James E. Lonaker was shot in his Hartsville, Indiana, home after a six-year-old child in the same room found an unsecured revolver on a desk. Lonaker was working at his computer in a back bedroom with his wife Jenny Rose and the couple’s one-year-old and six-year-old sons when the older child picked up the handgun and it discharged, striking Lonaker in the upper body.

Emergency services were called at about 9:17 p.m.; deputies found Lonaker with a gunshot wound and he died while being airlifted to IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. An autopsy listed cause of death as a gunshot wound to the chest and the manner of death as homicide. Family members described the shooting as a tragic accident; investigators reported Lonaker had owned guns his whole life, held a permit for the revolver, and had momentarily set the weapon down while changing clothes. Child Protective Services was notified.

Are there readers who knew the Lonaker family or who can share information about firearm safety practices in small households like this one?