A 14-year-old Detroit boy is fighting for his life, his distraught younger brother is wracked with remorse, and their father faces possible criminal charges because the father left a loaded and unattended shotgun within their reach.

Detroit police said a 14-year-old boy was shot Monday night at a home in the 13000 block of Pfent Street on Detroit’s east side.

Police said the teen was accidentally shot around 8 p.m. by his 10-year-old brother while they were playing with their father’s 2-gauge shotgun. The boy was shot in the stomach, police said.

The teen is in critical condition, officials said.

Police removed the gun from the home and checked it into evidence. A little more than an hour after the shooting, police led the father and a younger boy from the house and into the back of a squad car. They might have been taken to the hospital to be with the 14-year-old boy.

“Hiding” a gun from children doesn’t work. Telling children not to touch a gun works precisely as long as the child decides to listen. The only responsible course of action for gun owners is to lock up any and all weapons not under their immediate control.

It infuriates me that we keep reporting these stories nearly every week because some parents ignorantly assume that they know better than the experts, and that they think their children are somehow different, less inquisitive, and more prone to listening than other children.

Lock up your damn guns, people.