Three-year-old shoots parents with a single bullet in New Mexico.

Three-Year-Old Boy Shoots Both Parents With a Single Bullet in New Mexico

Three-Year-Old Boy Shoots Both Parents With a Single Bullet in New Mexico

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The Slatest
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Feb. 1 2015 1:49 PM

Three-Year-Old Boy Shoots Both Parents With a Single Bullet in New Mexico

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A screengrab from a KOB news report on the shooting shows the outside of the motel where the shooting took place on Jan. 31, 2015.

In the latest episode of babies and handguns, a 3-year-old in Albuquerque shot his mom and dad on Saturday afternoon. The boy apparently managed to get a handgun out of his mother’s purse and pull the trigger while Justin Reynolds and his pregnant girlfriend Monique Villescas were getting ready to order a pizza. The boy pulled the trigger and fired a bullet that hit his father’s buttock, exited through his hip and then struck the boy’s pregnant mother in the right shoulder, reports NBC’s local affiliate KOB. Both parents are recovering.

"It was like if I was to get up shake your hand and sat back down. That's how fast it happened," said Reynolds. "All of a sudden we heard a gun go off and the next minute I realized my girlfriend was bleeding. Then I sat down and realized I was shot too." Reynolds says he’s just glad the bullet did not hit Villescas’ 2-year-old daughter, who was sitting next to her mother when the shot was fired.

Daniel Politi has been contributing to Slate since 2004 and wrote the Today’s Papers column from 2006 to 2009. Follow him on Twitter.