Thursday, June 6, 2013

Day Before Yesterday In Dog Bites Man

From the state you love to hate:

13-year-old Johnson County girl accidentally shot
while brother cleaned gun

A teenage girl was accidentally shot and killed Tuesday night in Johnson County while her teenage brother cleaned a gun.

Emilee Bates, who celebrated her 13th birthday Tuesday, was airlifted to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, where she died, authorities said.

Deputies responded at about 8 p.m. to the home off FM917 near Joshua. Emilee’s 19-year-old brother was cleaning his guns when one went off, striking her in the stomach, authorities said.

The incident is being treated as an accident, and no charges are expected to be filed, said Lt. Tim Jones, a spokesman for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department.
Way to take personal responsibility, gun-cleaner. And a good job of holding him accountable, Sheriff’s Department. Not a lawyer (nor do we play one on tee vee) but this screams criminal negligence.

5 comments:

mikey said...

This is...inexplicable.

I have taken down, cleaned, lubricated, fiddled with, loaded, unloaded, and otherwise handled firearms, particularly handguns, in all sorts of states from falling down drunk to hard tweaking to full-on tripping and have never had an AD. The presence of a live round under the hammer kind of changes everything you do with a gun and everything you FEEL about having that gun in your hand.

At the same time, there's no weird magic about clearing the chamber. It's a simple, straightforward process, and VERY easy to both do and verify. Live rounds don't have anyplace to hide from you - the chamber is either empty or it's not.

I am annoyed by people who have computers yet don't know how to use them and think "I don't understand this stuff" is an acceptable explanation, but when it comes to firearms you don't get a pass. Not one bit. Not at all. It's not hard, and if you can't figure it out, you need to just shut up and get outta here...

BadTux said...

My daddy, a war veteran, taught me never point a gun at something I wasn't wanting to kill. If I wasn't wanting to kill somebody, keep it pointed at the ground or at a *solid* backstop like a hill or a thick concrete wall -- even if I thought I unloaded it and cleared the chamber and decocked it. As a result I've managed to make it 50 years as a gun owner without killing somebody. Wonderous, eh?

We let idiots like this 19 year old young man own guns without even the simplest of bubble tests to ascertain that they can handle them safely (my Daddy's lessons are the most important ones, methinks), then are surprised when innocents day. Yay, Amurka! U S A! U S A! U S A!

- Badtux the Well-Armed (but safe!) Penguin

OBS said...

Clearly neither of you is a moronic 19 year-old Texan. He probably has to remind himself to breathe.

Glennis said...

I never can understand why so many accidents happen when people are "cleaning the gun." Wouldn't you first make sure you unload the gun before even starting to clean it?

And why people always seem to be "cleaning guns" in bedrooms and living rooms when kids and loved ones are around?

I think in many of these cases, "cleaning the gun" is what they tell the police they were doing, when really they were fondling it, showing it off, posing in the mirror with their fetishized death-dealing hobby token.

BadTux said...

So, Aunt Snow, you are implying that "cleaning the gun" involves yanking the pud? Hmm...

- Badtux the Obscene Penguin