A three-year-old girl accidentally kills her sister in Texas

A three-year-old girl killed her four-year-old sister after accidentally shooting her with a semi-automatic pistol in Texas, police said.

This tragedy is the latest example of the dire effects of the proliferation of firearms in the United States.

Harris police official in the suburbs of Houston, Ed Gonzalez, said the girl had access to a semi-automatic pistol loaded with bullets, adding that family members heard a gunshot and rushed into the room to find the four-year-old girl's body.

Gonzalez added that what happened "is a new tragic incident caused by a child gaining access to a gun and killing another person.

There are about 400 million guns in circulation in the United States, outnumbering the population, while one in three adults has at least one gun, and one in two adults lives in a gun home.

More than 44,<> gun deaths were recorded in the United States last year, half by suicide and half by homicide, accidents or self-defense-related reasons, according to the Gun Violence Archive website. Texas is one of the states where guns are easy to own.