You cannot make the world perfectly safe. It’s not built that way. You can do everything right and still end up injured or killed because of the actions of another, intentional or otherwise.

What we can do, though, is mitigate the risk.

When it comes to guns, that becomes imperative, especially if you have young children. Guns don’t decide for themselves when or if they should be fired, so it’s best to take steps to make sure they’re not fired except when you want them to be.

Some people, however, don’t take those basic steps, and do you know what can happen? Stuff like this:

A three-year-old child in California has accidentally shot and killed their younger sister, aged one, after getting hold of a handgun, US authorities have said.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department received a call about a shooting on Monday around 7.30am local time at a home in Fallbrook, about 55 miles north of San Diego.

The toddler had reportedly got hold of of an “unsecured handgun“, and their younger sibling, who has not been named, suffered “a head injury,” the sheriff’s department said.

The injured child was taken to a nearby hospital but died one hour later.

It was not immediately clear if any parents were in the home at the time of the shooting, authorities said.

A three-year-old was able to gain access to a gun, then shot a still-younger sister in the head.

Let that sink in just a bit if you’re one of those who don’t think securing firearms is a solid idea.

This is the kind of thing that can happen.

Now, there’s still plenty to unpack, including the possibility that the parents weren’t even home. There’s no mention of a much older sibling, which means we don’t know that a three-year-old was the eldest person at home alone.

I mean, my folks left me home alone plenty when I was growing up, but not at that age.

Then, of course, the fact that a handgun was left unsecured.

What? Did they think a toddler would need access to a gun for self-defense?

It should be remembered, though, that California has a mandatory storage law. It’s a crime to store a gun where a kid can get it, and yet this happened.

So it also looks like we can see how little good mandatory storage laws actually do.

The truth of the matter is that education will make a much bigger impact than laws. It did nothing here in California, after all, yet it might have if the parents had been properly educated on how to store their firearms and what the ramifications of failing to do so might be.

I’m pretty sure they weren’t trying to set up a scenario where a three-year-old acted as a hitman, after all, which means what happened has got to be devastating for them. It didn’t have to be, and the anti-gunners in the state actually do share at least some of the responsibility. They thought passing a law was the answer when it really wasn’t and never will be.