A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas early Wednesday in Tacoma, police said. It was western Washington's third recent shooting by a child. The Tacoma-area family had stopped for gas about 12:30 a.m. The father put his pistol under the seat and got out to pump gas while the mother went inside the convenience store, Benjamin said. They left their son and their infant daughter in the car. The boy climbed out of his child seat, found the gun and shot himself in the head, police said. The father has a concealed weapons permit, and no charges are anticipated, he said. Twenty-seven states have some form of law to prevent child access to firearms, but Washington is not one of them. Such laws can include criminal penalties for adults who allow children to get their hands on guns, according to the San Francisco-based group Legal Community Against Violence. A spokesman for the Second Amendment Foundation said existing laws are enough to encourage gun safety, as long as the gun owners obey them. "Responsible people will maintain gun safety whether there is a law or not; irresponsible people will ignore the law," said Dave Workman, senior editor of the group's publication, called thegunmag.com. He said existing statutes, including child endangerment laws, were designed to prevent such tragedies. Workman said what he can't figure out is why the two men left their guns in their vehicles when they were licensed to carry them. "Most responsible gun owners, especially if they're licensed to carry, will keep their firearm with them," Workman said. News of the latest shooting caused Washington Cease Fire Executive Director Gregory Roberts to groan, "Oh no." "We think guns are dangerous, but they are not treated as dangerous by our society or by laws or by our regulations," he said. We regard guns as some sort of sacred object that should not be subject to regulation.