Unloaded weapons don’t violate North Carolina safe gun storage law, appeals court says

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An appeals court threw out convictions Tuesday against a North Carolina woman who was charged after a teenager fatally shot himself in her home, saying she was absolved because the weapon had been initially unloaded.

State law makes it a crime for a gun owner to improperly store a weapon at home, allowing a child to show it off, commit a crime or hurt someone. But the law can only be applied if the weapon is loaded, according to a unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel of the intermediate-level state Court of Appeals.

A trial judge found Kimberly Cable guilty of involuntary manslaughter and two misdemeanor safe firearm storage counts in 2022. She was sentenced to three years of probation.

On July 2018, Cable’s son had another boy — both of them 16 years old — over at his house for the night, according to case documents. At 2 a.m., her son went in the bedroom of Cable and her husband as they were sleeping and retrieved an unloaded .44-caliber Magnum revolver that authorities say Cable possessed and a box of ammunition, both laying on top of an open gun safe.

The son showed his friend the revolver and placed it and the ammo on the top of a gun safe in his bedroom. The friend then asked the son if he wanted to play Russian roulette. The friend quickly put a bullet in the revolver, pointed it at himself and fired, dying instantly, the documents said.

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