A Texas man accidentally shot a child while officiating a wedding in Lancaster County on Saturday, the sheriff’s office says.
Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said deputies were sent to a wedding at Hillside Events near Denton on a report of a gunshot wound.
Deputies learned that 62-year-old Michael Gardner, the wedding’s officiant, fired a gun to get everyone’s attention.
“He was going to fire in the air, and as he did that, it slipped and went off,” Houchin said.
The gun was loaded with a blank that Gardner made with gunpowder and glue.
The child should’ve also carried a gun to protect themselves from bad wedding officiants.
The only thing that stops a bad pastor with a gun is a good toddler with a gun.
Houchin said Gardner accidentally shot a child in the shoulder. They were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Also, it was a blank, so the kid doesn’t have a bullet hole. None of this excuses wielding a firearm irresponsibly in a crowd of people, and I’ll take “Trigger discipline” for $200, Alex. Just wanted to bring to the fore that the kid will be okay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee#Death
In a film shoot prior to the fatal scene, the gun that was used as a prop (a real revolver) was loaded with improperly made dummy rounds, improvised from live cartridges that had the powder charges removed by the special effects crew, so in close-ups the revolver would show normal-looking ammunition. However, the crew neglected to remove the primers from the cartridges, and at some point before the fatal event, one of the rounds had been fired. Although there were no powder charges, the energy from the ignited primer was enough to separate the bullet from the casing and push it part-way into the gun barrel, where it got stuck—a dangerous condition known as a squib load.
During the fatal scene, which called for the revolver to be fired at Lee from a distance of 3.6–4.5 meters (12–15 ft), the dummy cartridges were replaced with blank rounds, which contained a powder charge and the primer, but no solid bullet, allowing the gun to be fired with sound and flash effects without the risk of an actual projectile. However, the gun was not properly checked and cleared before the blank was fired, and the dummy bullet previously lodged in the barrel was then propelled forward by the blank’s propellant and shot out the muzzle with almost the same force as if the round were live, striking Lee in the abdomen.[101][102]
So two blanks, one with no powder and the other with no bullet, effectively formed one round of live ammunition. What a truly wild story.
It says they meant to point it upward and it slipped but “not drawing a gun in a crowd” would have been better.
Gun safety rules.
- ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction;
- ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot
- ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.
Every gun is considered loaded until proven otherwise. Every pull of the trigger will cost $10,000, as lawyers become involved, per NRA literature. Hearing damage by firing close to people is another risk.
Hey you might get a kick out of this. If you look carefully in the show Farscape you will notice that the person in the show who was an ex-solider never has her finger on the trigger unless firing but the untrained people with her do.
Kid will survive, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be traumatized. Still, I’m glad the guy at least had the foresight not to stick a real bullet in there… why he thought firing a gun was the best way to get attention, though, is beyond me. If someone fires a gun in my near vicinity I’m not suddenly going to go “ohhh, it’s time to pay attention to the pastor” Nah. Imma be running for the hills before I even know my legs are moving
The guy at least had the foresight not to stick a real bullet in there
The next one might not because America’s gun laws – especially in Texas – are based on voluntarily following good practises.
Whenever something like this happens, pro-gun people flock to the comments to pat themselves on the back by telling everyone that they would never do that with a gun because they have trigger discipline and they treat guns with respect.
But so what? They might never drive drunk but that doesn’t mean we can abolish DUI laws.
What laws did this guy break and what is his punishment? Was it illegal to make his own sketchy blanks? Was it illegal to injure an innocent person with a firearm? Was it illegal to have a firearm at a wedding or to brandish it? Is he going to be prevented from owning firearms in the future now that he has proven to be a dumb fuck?
And most importantly, what is the pro-gun community going to do to prevent things like this happening again?
But we know the answer. He probably broke zero laws and will still be able to own all the guns he wants and take them to all the weddings he wants. His punishment will be minor or non-existent. The pro-gun community will do absolutely nothing to address the shortcomings of their laws, they’ll just tut about it on the internet.
Republicans value $16 million a year and a voting bloc that will tolerate anything over people’s lives. The gun lobby values profits over people’s lives.
But the pro-gun community sells people out for convenience.
The only reason his grandkid is still alive is because he wasn’t QUITE stupid enough to put live rounds in his ‘attention getter’. What a moron.
I’ve seen a guy shoot his daughter in the leg at a public outdoor range because he cleared a misfire in his handgun incorrectly. She lived, but goddamn. It only takes a second of inattention to kill someone and it happens all the time. These people do not treat firearms with respect. It’s not a fucking noisemaker or a penis replacement. It kills, instantly.
Which is why the rest of the world thinks it’s fucking insane how lax gun laws are in the US.
I just imagine the internal conversation that morning.
well I could bring a bell, or maybe even an air horn. I want to make sure I can control the group. I guess I could also raise my voice too.
OR…
This is why, while I support recognizing the right to self defense, I do not support Constitutional carry. Something this dangerous should require regular safety training. I felt the same about driving.
I live in Texas which is now permitless carry.
I still have a license to carry because I fucking should have one.
Blanks are not 100% safe either. A blank is what killed Brandon Lee on the set of the Crow back in the 90s.
Sorta, yep! It happened in two parts - for one scene the gun had homemade cartridges with primer and and an actual bullet, but no gunpowder, so that the ammo looked real in close-ups of the gun. At some point that round was fired and the primer was enough to discharge the bullet, which lodged itself in the barrel.
Then, later on in another scene, they loaded the same gun with blanks full of powder and primer but no bullet, so when fired they’d get the usual bang and flash. Except, since there was a bullet lodged in the barrel, the blank round still had enough force to propel the bullet out the rest of the way and into Brandon Lee.
It happened in such a freaky way that it feels like there must be more to it, but just as likely human stupidity and bad luck.
I didn’t look up the actual incident so I wasn’t actually aware of that. What I was trying to say is that I think there’s this thought in a lot of people’s head’s that blanks are completely safe and they’re not. At close range or if there’s some debris in the barrel a blank can be dangerous.
Sort of. He was actually killed by a bullet that had lodged in the barrel from a previous issue with the weapon. The blank just fired the bullet that was lodged in the barrel.
People have killed themselves with blanks though, usually screwing around pretending to commit suicide and then accidentally doing it. I remember reading about an actor that put pistol loaded with blanks up to his head and pulled the trigger. There’s enough gas force coming out the end to put a hole in you at that range.
If the kid had a gun, that wouldn’t have happened, right? AMiRiTe?
“buh guns not the the problem!1!”
But the gun literally isn’t the problem, it’s the idiot with the gun. The gun isn’t sentient. The problem is we allow stupid people to own guns.
Edit: just the downvotes on this comment show that people think guns=bad
If this idiot didn’t have a gun in this situation, no one would have gotten shot.
Generally when people say or suggest that, “Guns are a problem,” they don’t mean the literal inanimate objects are the sole issue; it’s a shorthand way to refer to many things including access to firearms, lack of background checks, proper training, lobbying, and much more.
And that’s why heated debates like this happen, because people don’t say what they mean. A lot of people do really think the gun is the problem though.
I was raised around guns and shot them at a young age (10ish, I’m from South Jersey, not Nowhere USA), it was instilled in me “You don’t fuck around with guns. Period. If you do, someone will end up getting hurt. It doesn’t matter if it’s a paintball gun, a BB gun, or a shotgun. Treat it with respect and only point it at things you wish to kill (metaphorically speaking for paintball guns)”.
The major problem is the lack of training and respect for the weapon. People treat it like it’s a party noise maker or an accessory to make you look cool/bad ass.
Which is why nobody is demanding guns are thrown in jail, they’re demanding laws that make even a token effort to minimise the risk to the public.
But the pro-gun community responds with vapid “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” talking points, fed to them by a gun lobby that doesn’t care what kills people, as long as the profits keep soaring.
Legal gun owners kill people, with guns.
They make up 80% of mass shooters but when you ask the pro-gun community what they’re going to change to stop legal gun owners doing mass shootings, they proudly boast “nothing” – they’re content to keep selling guns to blatantly dangerous people and letting people die.
Children are killing themselves in record numbers using their father’s legally owned guns but when you ask the pro-gun community what they’re going to do about poorly secured firearms, they proudly boast “nothing” – they want to keep guns in gloveboxes and bedsides lest they miss their chance at a “get out of murder free” and they don’t care if criminals and kids get their hands on them.
And of course, every week there’s a new story about a legal gun owner doing something stupid with a gun but when you ask the gun community what they’re going to do about stupid people with guns, once again they proudly boast “nothing”. They’ll double over to suck their own dicks because it wasn’t them but they won’t budge an inch to ensure “responsible gun owners” are actually responsible.
So fuck em and their second amendment. They’ve been insisting they had all the answers for 20 years and they’ve fixed exactly nothing, so I’ve got no idea why they’re welcome in the conversation at all, let alone dictating when it can happen and what can be discussed.
If they throw a tantrum about their rights, fuck em still. Statistically they’ve repeatedly voted to trample the rights of others and even if they haven’t, their guns did nothing to stop it happening, despite what we were promised.
If they want to follow through on their threats to become domestic terrorists, fuck em even harder. It shows they were never as far from firing on innocent people as they claimed and if they want to die in a hail of bullets, at least it’s them dying for their guns for once.
If they do not give an inch, they will be forced to accept a mile. The obstinacy on action and refusal to allow any changes is just moving people more and more to the extreme on this issue. If the NRA doesn’t want to come to the table, they’ll see their guns confiscated at gunpoint.
This isn’t a threat, it’s an observation. It’s why there’s the saying “those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable”. We are going to get the gun violence under control one way or another.
This person should never be allowed a firearm again right? He has abused our rights and therefor can not be trusted with the responsibility. Yet still those “rights shall not be infringed” folk will fight for him to carry whatever he wants.
Everyone is stupid though, or will be. Humans are fragile and will deteriorate to the point of loss of control or sense of reality. It is the future we all share. Most of us will not die with our dignity intact.
How you going to let such dumb, fragile, emotional, unstable animals carry killing machines just whenever? Of course this is what happened.
I’m for more consistent regulations state to state, but saying “take away all the guns, problem solved” is like putting a bandaid on an infected wound. You’re not treating the cause, our mental healthcare and healthcare in general is shit in this country. People want an easy fix and I don’t blame them.
Obviously not, but nothing happens in vacuum. Banning guns screws over all the people that use them legally and responsibly. It’s like saying “we should ban all cars because some people can stop driving while drunk”. The real solution is removing the idiot from the equation.
Propose a solution then. How do we stop this from happening again? We cannot simply say “ah well this is the price of gun ownership” and do nothing.
It’s absolutely unacceptable, and a growing number of Americans, especially young people, do not want this to continue.
Gun proponents thus have a choice. Find a way for this to not be the price of gun ownership, or see gun ownership go away. If you do nothing, the extreme solutions to confiscate guns and the like are more likely to happen.
First off, we could make more consistent laws federally. Laws differ greatly from state to state. Here in NJ, I can’t even buy a damn BB gun at a sporting goods store and it takes at least two weeks to get any deadly firearm, yet in some place like Texas, I could probably walk into a sporting goods store and buy a hunting rifle that day and walk out with it.
As a more direct response to your question: if you do something dumb with a gun, your ownership rights should be hindered or completely revoked, and you should be fined/jailed/held responsible for your actions. Treat it the same way we treat motor vehicles. You get caught driving drunk? You can’t drive for a few weeks/months, you get caught again? It gets revoked longer this time, etc… You get caught speeding? You get fined. Pretty simple.
The problem is we have all these “you won’t infringe on my second amendment rights!” idiots and lobbyists that prevent any changes from happening.
Ffs so you know how pedantic you sound right now? Yes technically a gun just sitting somewhere locked and unloaded is usually not the issue the problem is they are freaken everywhere. There is probably enough rounds of ammo in civilian hands in the US to literally wipe out humanity. When you have this much of something even if an absurdly small percentage is misused it means it will happen every day.
Ffs so you know how pedantic you sound right now?
🥱
“I don’t like what you’re saying, so I’m gonna insult you for saying it.”
They truly aren’t, this is straight up lack of brain cells that’s the issue here
You’d think the “don’t ban guns” people would be all for registration and background checks. After all, guns aren’t the problem, people are.
Yeah 100% if you want to own a class of gun (say a revolver) you should have to take a class on that specific type of gun and pass a written and practical test, and renew this regularly. Want a different type of gun? Better go take that class and pass that test.
Rabid anti gun folks are just as bad as the rabid pro gun folks, but the regular ass folks in the middle all seem to agree that strong controls on who can purchase the dangerous tool is the most reasonable solution
But this is lemmy, basically Reddit but more intense. I fully expect the folks here to be rabid anti gun without any rationale arguments for that stance
Someone who makes their own blank and whips it out at a wedding near a child simply to get folks attention is so fucking dumb he’d find a way to hurt himself with his dinner fork
The issue isn’t the tool, it’s the retard wielding it
The problem is that an idiot with no brain cells was allowed to have a gun.
Americans have an estimated 120 guns per 100 citizens, almost double that of the country with the second highest amount of firearms per capita.
Tell me again how that isn’t a problem.
It’s a tool. Blame the idiots that don’t use it correctly, not the tool itself
There are 908 motor vehicles per 1000 citizens in the US (source
In 2020, there were 5,250,837 vehicle collisions in America source
Tell me again how cars aren’t the problem.
Oh wait, that’s right, they are just a tool. The problem is people.
Most people that are pro gun aren’t against stricter gun control measures, the problem is we don’t live in society where we can tell who will do something dumb in the future. Blanket bans don’t help anyone.
I would rather cage stupid people than implement stricter gun control to be honest. I think that would go a hell of a lot farther in improving society.
Copy pasted for like the 8th time in this god damn thread now
Yeah 100% if you want to own a class of gun (say a revolver) you should have to take a class on that specific type of gun and pass a written and practical test, and renew this regularly. Want a different type of gun? Better go take that class and pass that test.
Rabid anti gun folks are just as bad as the rabid pro gun folks, but the regular ass folks in the middle all seem to agree that strong controls on who can purchase the dangerous tool is the most reasonable solution
But this is lemmy, basically Reddit but more intense. I fully expect the folks here to be rabid anti gun without any rationale arguments for that stance
