16 year old Louisiana boy shot by friend with assault rifle

A 16 year old Louisiana boy was shot and killed when a "friend" was showing him his new semi-automatic rifle that he thought was unloaded  From an article:

A 16-year-old was shot and killed when a friend was showing a group of people a semi-automatic rifle he believed to be unloaded, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said.

The incident occurred around 1 a.m. in the 2000 block of James Drive in Marrero and left the mother of the shooting victim seeking answers to several questions.

According to the sheriff's office, 23-year-old Chris Cardon of Gretna told investigators that he and 16-year-old Trey Stahl were inside the home along with four other people and that he was showing the group a recently-purchased AR-15.

A sheriff's office spokesman said Cardon told them that he didn't know there was a round in the chamber and that he pulled the trigger to clear the weapon and it went off, striking the Stahl in the neck.

Emergency responders found Stahl lying on the kitchen floor. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Cardon was booked on one count of negligent homicide.

"I don't think it's really hit me yet," said Shannon Guidry, Stahl's mother. "That was my baby."

Guidry said she received the call that no mother wants to get, but what upsets her even more were the circumstances surrounding the shooting - at least what she knows of them.

Guidry said she found a picture of Stahl holding a semi-automatic weapon posted on his Facebook page last night. She thinks it may be the gun that ended up producing the fatal shot.

"I want to know what adult in his right mind gives a child a gun to hold?" she asked.

Guidry is concerned because she says someone is deleting photos from her son's Facebook page. She says she wants to know why someone handled a loaded gun around her young son.

"It could have been avoided totally," she said. "You don't have to go over there with no gun. You didn't have to let my child put his hand on no gun."