RALEIGH, N.C. — There’s a new push in North Carolina to change gun storage requirements after a Fayetteville family lost a child because of improper gun storage.
“I got a grave that I go to see my daughter and that I have no peace. It [is] zero ounces of peace because I got no justice,” Fon Dockery said.
In July of 2023, the lives of the Dockery family changed forever.
“What my 6-year-old daughter has to live with, with her life,” Dockery said.
The father of two said his 8-year-old daughter Jenesis was shot and killed after being dropped off at the babysitter’s house.
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said the shooter was also a juvenile.
“Guns are killing our kids in North Carolina and legislatively we're not doing anything about it,” Dockery said.
Currently, if you don’t properly store a gun and a kid shoots another child, the state has laws imposing criminal liability.
In the Dockery case, the sheriff's office said the minor was detained in August of last year, nearly two weeks after the shooting happened.
Now, the Dockery family wants the state to require firearms to be stored with a locking device in place.
“We're smacking them on the wrist saying, pay a fine. We'll put 'em on your record. You can go back out there and get guns and keep 'em,” said the father.
It’s part of a project they’re calling the "Jenesis Law."
Spectrum News 1 asked a gun advocacy group about the Dockery’s proposal.
The president of Grass Roots North Carolina Paul Valone said the death of Jenesis Dockery is both sad and tragic.
Valone said there has been a law in place since the early 90s to protect children in gun related incidents called the storage of firearms to protect minors.
“If a minor gained access to a firearm and misuses it, the owner of the firearm is guilty of a crime,” Valone said.
Valone said guns and current gun laws aren’t the issue, it’s the people that own them.
“This avoidable tragedy was entirely the result of negligence on the part of the babysitter, who should be held both civilly and criminally liable,” Valone said.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 1.5 million adults in North Carolina have a firearm in or around the home.
Nearly half of adults store their firearm loaded. Half of those are unlocked.
The Dockerys find the statistics unacceptable and want something done before another tragedy happens.
“Wasn't that my daughter was being unsafe. It was that somebody improperly stored a gun and the affects of them improperly storing a gun makes us now have to go through Thanksgiving and Christmas [without our child],” Dockery said.
The family started working on the Jenesis Law to keep her name alive. They hope the legislature will pick it up in the future, to require safer gun storage.
State research shows North Carolina has 10 of the top 100 U.S. cities for reports of gun thefts from vehicles.
In 2022, more than 2,500 guns were stolen from vehicles throughout the state and 182 of those were stolen in Fayetteville alone, which is the same community the Dockerys are from.