Sheriff’s investigators in north Florida were trying to determine how a 4-year-old boy got his hands on the gun he used to shoot his mother as she drove a pickup truck.
Putnam County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Joseph Wells says 31-year-old Jamie Gilt of Jacksonville owns the .45-caliber gun the boy fired Tuesday afternoon.
A deputy saw her behaving frantically inside the truck, which was stopped partially in the road.
The deputy then saw she’d been shot in the back and the bullet had exited from her stomach area.
Wells says Gilt told deputies her son had accidentally shot her. She was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, she said. Investigators had not been able to interview her, Wells said.
The boy, who wasn’t injured, is with relatives. The Florida Department of Children and Families is also investigating.
Under Florida law, it is a misdemeanor for someone to store or leave a loaded gun where a child has access to it.
“They must keep firearms secured and locked,” Wells said.
Hours earlier Gilt, a gun-rights advocate, bragged on Facebook that her 4-year-old son "gets jacked up to target shoot.”
Officials told the Florida Times-Union that the child found the gun on the truck's floor.
"There was a booster seat in the back of the vehicle, but, however, the boy was not strapped in when the deputy got to them,” Sheriff's Capt. Joseph Wells told the Times-Union.
Gilt -- who was towing a horse trailer when the incident occurred -- was on her way to a relative's home to pick up a horse, police said.
Her vehicle was spotted by a sheriff's deputy who was driving by and noticed Gilt in the driver's seat "motioning to him as if she needed assistance," according to police. After approaching the vehicle, the deputy realized that Gilt had been shot.
"The deputy provided first aid until the arrival of paramedics," the statement said. "The victim was transported to University of Florida Health in Gainesville and was last reported to be in stable condition. The only other occupant of the vehicle was the victim's 4-year-old son, who was unharmed."
Before she went into the emergency room, the statement notes, Gilt told police that she'd been shot by her son.
Gilt's social media presence is filled with pro-gun messages, Second Amendment memes and posts supporting the NRA, as well as photos of her posing with weapons.
She appears to maintain a Facebook page called "Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense," which has since been inundated by people criticizing her passion for weapons in light of being shot by her son.
By: Wire Reports.
Review: Emerging Market Formulations &
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