15-year-old Yazmin Esmeralda was attempting to record herself posing with a 9mm Uzi submachine gun. This was while she was visiting her grandmother in Sinaloa, Mexico.
The teen had located the gun at the bottom of a closet in a bedroom. She had requested that her brother record her as she handled the gun and wanted to upload a video of herself to TikTok.
However, the gun fired accidentally, and Yazmin was hit in the head. She died immediately.
Authorities say that it isn’t known why the weapon was inside the residence. The state’s prosecutor noted that Mexico’s army no longer uses 9 mm Uzis. This was after realizing that their safety locks were hard to use and because of the many occurrences of them firing unintentionally.
“The fact that there were weapons in the house, that weren’t controlled, is the responsibility of the adults. They knew there were children in the house,” the prosecutor said.
Additionally, it isn’t easy for Mexican civilians to purchase weapons because they are so costly, permits take years to get, and there is only one valid gun business in the country.
Therefore, it is known that many weapons are brought into the the county illegally from the U.S.
