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Capt. Gator DeLoach said the charge carries a penalty of up to 180 days in jail. Sheriff’s officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But, CNN reported: “DeLoach said the sheriff’s office supports the rights of citizens to own and possess firearms, but gun owners have the ‘additional responsibility of ensuring children do not gain unintended access to a firearm in hopes of preventing tragedies like this.'”

Officials told the Florida Times-Union that Gilt was not supervising her son when he fired a .45-calibre handgun, hitting his mother in the back while she was driving down a road in Putnam County.

The Associated Press quoted DeLoach saying that Gilt had placed the loaded weapon underneath the front seat of her pickup before it slid to the back seat, where her son was able to pick it up off the floor after unbuckling himself from a child booster seat.

The AP reported that the gun — which was legally owned — was not in a holster and didn’t have a trigger lock on.

“She was shot through the seat and the round went through her back,” sheriff’s Capt. Joseph Wells told the Times-Union. “There was a booster seat in the back of the vehicle, but, however, the boy was not strapped in when the deputy got to them.”

Gilt was towing a trailer when the shooting occurred and was on her way to a relative’s home to pick up a horse, police said.

Her vehicle was spotted by a sheriff’s deputy who was driving by and noticed Gilt in the driver’s seat “motioning to him as if she needed assistance,” according to police. After approaching the vehicle, the deputy realized that Gilt had been shot.