American

Tawanah Jean Griggs, 17, was lying on the sofa in her mother's living room in Bartlesville, Okla., last May 1 when her cousin Neil Ennis walked in, carrying a 12-gauge pump shotgun. Ennis leveled the weapon at the girl. "Shall we put her out of her misery?" he asked a mutual friend standing there. The gun went , off, killing Griggs. Her photograph was featured on the cover of TIME's July 17 investigation into the deaths of the 464 people killed by guns in the U.S. during the week of May 1-7.

Last week Ennis, 20, pleaded guilty to a charge of first-degree manslaughter and was ordered to spend six months in jail, work 480 hours of community service and pay $3,000 in fines.

Although Ennis was initially charged with second-degree murder, the shooting "was clearly an accident," said assistant district attorney Perry Newman. Ennis was joking when he pointed the shotgun at his cousin, and his finger apparently bumped the trigger. Like more than 60 other shooting victims in TIME's survey, Tawanah Jean Griggs was the victim not of a crime but of a recklessly casual attitude about guns.