4-year old Florida girl finds felon-father's gun and shoots herself

A 4-year old girl has just come out of a medically-induced coma, one month after shooting herself with a loaded, unsecured gun she found on the couch of her home, in Titusville, Florida.  The gun belonged to her father, a convicted felon.  The father and mother are now being charged with neglect and for tampering with evidence (since they haven't turned over the weapon!).

From an article and video:

Leshumbia Stokes and Marie Buskey were in handcuffs and charged with child neglect just hours after their 4-year-old awoke from a coma in at Orlando's Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

The girl had been in a medically induced coma since she accidentally shot herself nearly a month ago in their Titusville home. She woke up on Wednesday.

Titusville police believe the girl's father, Stokes, left a loaded gun on the couch of his Craig Avenue home. They think the girl found the gun and shot herself.

But, detectives waited until Wednesday to arrest the parents because they wanted to make sure they're evidence was in order.

"We wanted to make sure we had all our evidence. We were trying to get statements from the father and so forth and he was somewhat elusive," said Det. Mark Jennings, of the Titusville Police Department.

Stokes also faces a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and evidence tampering.

Detectives haven't recovered the weapon.

"He told us he was a man of his word that he was going to provide us with the gun, but he did not do so as of yet," said Jennings.

The father's minivan had bullet holes in it, but they were "unrelated."

Does it make sense to take a felon's word for it that he will turn over a weapon from a nearly-fatal shooting, instead of confiscating it immediately?

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.