Elder members of First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains were meeting Thursday afternoon to eat a Thanksgiving dinner when the mass shooting came up, and one of them asked if anyone brought their gun to church, reported WATE-TV.
Police said a man in his 80s pulled out a .380 caliber Ruger handgun and boasted, “I carry my handgun everywhere.
The man removed the magazine, cleared the chamber and showed the weapon to some other men, then put the magazine back in, evidently loaded a round into the chamber and returned the gun to his holster, police said.
Someone else walked up and asked to see the gun, police said, and the man took out the weapon again.
He pulled it back out and said, ‘With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded,'” according to Police Chief Russ Parks.
He then pulled the trigger, apparently forgetting he had put a round in the chamber.
The gun was lying on its side on a table, and the bullet sliced the man’s palm and entered the left side of his wife’s abdomen and exited the right.
Both of them were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
It's what they do.
This won't go down as a "mass shooting," since only two people were shot. It should go down as a "shooting in a church," but it probably won't reach that list, either. I don't know the law in Tennessee, but as a church member I wouldn't be all that comfortable with other members "packing heat" so cavalierly. Whether the church can block that is a matter of law and church decision. No doubt this guy thought he was a conscientious and careful gun owner, but this is why the NRA used to be against carrying guns in places where you didn't intent to shoot something (hunting, IOW) and always carried the gun unloaded until you intended to shoot something. One other rule: always treat a gun as loaded. Always. Because guns shoot bullets, and bullets can hit people. The NRA used to be all about gun safety, and the proper enjoyment of firearms (i.e., again, in hunting).
Guns shoot bullets. Guns and bullets follow the laws of physics, not the will of the wielder. This man never intended to shoot himself or his wife; but he did. All in the name of self-defense. The only good outcome here, is that no one else was shot. But that's not much good, because two people were; two people who shouldn't have been. And who would he have shot in an assault like the one in Sutherland Springs? Probably not the "bad guy." In the excitement, he might even forget to chamber a round. Wouldn't that be ironic?
In our minds, we are the heroes of our own action movie; in reality, not so much. Movie heroes, after all, never shoot their wives by accident.
I ever more am of the opinion that the only people who should have guns are the police and that we need to control the police better. I watched a movie, once, about the training they give at the RCMP Depot in Regina and one of the things that made the biggest impression on me was how they talked about the rules for using deadly force and how deadly serious it is. And they still have problems with it even with that training.
ReplyDeleteRexall rangers who are too stupid to remember there's one in the chamber are just one of the serious results of people watching too many movies and too much TV.
I wonder, will that church learn anything from this and ban weapons?
I wonder if Tennessee law would allow the church to issue such a ban.
ReplyDeleteAnd what kind of argument it would stir up to try. Although after this incident.....
I always bring a bazooka to Meeting. I call it..."The Silencer."
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