A three-year-old boy shot his four-year-old brother with his father's gun, police in the Texan city of Dallas said.

The elder sibling was hit in the abdomen in the early hours of Wednesday morning, investigations said.

They added that boys’ mother called emergency services as his father tried to drive the two boys to the hospital himself.

He was stopped just a short distance away from his home and an ambulance took the child to Children’s Medical Centre Dallas, where he is expected to make a full recovery.

Police are now investigating how the toddler managed to get hold of the handgun. The make and model is unknown.

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Child abuse investigators later discovered the father had recently bought the gun used in the shooting, the NBC Dallas-Fort Worth news channel reported.

He could face charges for injury to a child and making a firearm accessible to a child.