Renner Avenue shooting

Newark police say a 9-year-old girl was shot in a Renner Avenue home Saturday by her 12-year-old brother, who was playing with an unsecured handgun.

(Naomi Nix/NJ Advance Media)

New Jersey is one of 28 states in the country with specific laws on the books that punish adults if kids have access to their guns, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The state's law prohibiting children's access to unsecured firearms can subject violators to fines of up to $1,000 and a jail sentence of up to six months.

On Saturday, a Newark woman was charged after police said her 12-year-old son shot her 9-year-old daughter in the chest while playing with an unsecured handgun in their house. The girl was in critical but stable condition at a Newark hospital last night.

The mother, Catrease Thomas, 33, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child — which is a different crime, and a more serious one, than the one that specifically prohibits unsecured firearms around children. Newark police did not immediately say whether she would be charged with the specific offense of having an unsecured weapon in her house with children. Thomas was also charged with unlawful possession of a weapon.

A person is guilty of the crime in New Jersey if the child actually gets access to the loaded, unsecured weapon in the adult's household, regardless of whether anyone is hurt as a result. New Jersey firearms dealers are required to notify buyers of the law.

Some states recently stiffened their laws; in California, a person can be found guilty of giving kids access to firearms even if the child never actually gets his or her hands on the gun.

Several New Jersey families in recent years have suffered the tragic consequences of children getting access to guns.

In 2013, a 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed 6-year-old Brandon Holt in Ocean County. The 4-year-old's father, Anthony Senatore, was indicted on a child endangerment charge, and was also charged with the child access to firearms offense.

Senatore eventually pleaded guilty on two child endangerment charges for leaving the guns within reach of children, and faces three years in prison.

The shooting led to calls for stiffer penalties on adults who leave unsecured guns around kids.

And in August this year, a 9-year-old New Jersey girl accidentally shot and killed a firearms instructor with an Uzi in Arizona. No laws were broken in the accident or the girl's firing the weapon at the shooting range.

Nationwide, 1.7 million children live with unlocked, loaded guns, according to the gun control advocacy group Brady Campaign. But in New Jersey, only an estimated 0.3 percent of adults have unlocked, loaded guns in their house with kids, much lower than the national average, the group reported. An estimated 7,710 kids in New Jersey live in homes where there are unlocked, loaded firearms. Only Massachusetts has a smaller percentage of kids living with unlocked, loaded firearms, estimates show.

National estimates on accidental shootings of children by their peers are hard to come by, but the Brady Campaign says that 20,000 children and teens are killed or injured by guns every year.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, at least 100 children in America were killed in accidental shootings between December 2012 and December 2013. Two-thirds of the children were killed in their family's homes or vehicles, most often with a gun that was legally owned but not secured, the gun control group said.

"Our children’s lives are on the line and its up to all of us – gun owners and non-gun owners alike to do our part to keep curious children safe from guns," said Everytown press secretary Lizzie Ulmer in an email. "If more gun owners keep their guns unloaded and locked, fewer children will be killed."

Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.