Two Ontario parents who believe their toddler son was injured by teen boys shooting pellet guns are wondering why the guns are legal and why no one is being held responsible for his injuries.

Over the Labour Day weekend, Dorota and Matt Sanchez and their 22-month-old son Samuel were spending an idyllic afternoon floating on a rubber raft at a cottage near Bancroft, Ont., when the child suddenly screamed out in pain.

They saw he was bleeding from a wound on his chest, but couldn’t understand what might have happened.

“We thought maybe something came up from the raft, we had no idea. But when we heard the second and third shots or sounds, then we were scared,” Matt told CTV’s Canada AM on Friday.

The couple gathered their other two daughters and rushed into the cottage and to help Samuel.

“A short while later, we noticed three cottages down, a young boy up on their deck, shooting a pellet gun -- or what looked like a rifle,” Matt related.

“We go over to talk to the parents and tell them what we think happened. And to our shock, they gave us pretty much no response. They acknowledged that yes, their son shoots out into the water. And when we said, ‘We think he hit our son,’ no apology, no concern,” he said.

“So at this point, we’re angry.”

The family decided to call police. An ambulance was also called to take the boy to confirm the pellets didn’t actually puncture his chest.

OPP officers talked to the family of the boys involved and gave them a stern warning, but decided there were not enough grounds to press charges. They concluded that with no actual pellets found, no proof the boys were deliberately targeting the family and with no other witnesses, there was simply not enough evidence.

In Canada, air guns are unregulated items, says Ontario deputy chief firearms officer inspector Staff Sgt. Steve Ridout. That includes BB guns or pellet guns, which use compressed air to fire metal projectiles, and airsoft guns, which fire plastic projectiles,

“What makes a firearm a firearm by definition for the Criminal Code or for civil liability issues is the velocity of the projectile,” he explained from Barrie, Ont. “The threshold measure is 500 feet (or 152 metres) per second.”

That means that anyone can access and buy the guns wherever they’re sold. There’s no regulation of who can own them, no licensing, and no registering requirement.

Nevertheless, Ridout says that air gun users still need to use them safely.

“The person shooting it has a responsibility to shoot it in a safe direction. So that means you have to be aware both what your target is and what’s beyond that target,” he said.

While he can’t talk about this investigation specifically, Ridout says each incident is investigated on its own merits and charges could be laid if an air gun is used with criminal intent. And if a victim had been grievously injured, the gun owner could also face civil liability.

But none of that satisfies the Sanchez family, who say they think that new laws are needed to better regulate these guns.

“It’s frustrating. It could have been a lot worse,” said Matt. “Fortunately, nobody else was hurt more seriously. But it’s very frustrating that nobody is accountable for this.”