Guns are tools. Like any tool, there is a right way to use them, and people who are unwilling to learn the right way shouldn’t be allowed to have them. I believe in the Second Amendment, just like every other Amendment, but that doesn’t mean that people exercising their rights, don’t have a responsibility to do it in a way that ensures other people are safe.

If you feel compelled to fire a gun for New Year’s, making blank cartridges is simple. If you don’t want to do that, shoot into the ground. It is your responsibility to know where any bullet you fire is going.

I would love to see them do the math and determine the path of the bullet that killed that little boy, and start asking some pointed questions. they have the hole in the roof, and the boy’s location in the church as two points on the parabola that the bullet would have followed, and the bullet will tell them the caliber to provide the rest of the information necessary to reconstruct the path.

I few gentle hints about obstructing justice, and you might shake someone loose to finger the shooter.

Yes, Steve, there are people willing to give information, if someone is willing to listen and act.

Kryten, the whole Cheney incident is so obviously a cover-up of a hunting while drunk incident, that no one who knows anything about hunting buys the story. Even if the pattern had shown the greater distance, the number on rule for real hunters is “identify your target”. If you are hunting with a group, you have to know where everyone in the group is, before you pull a trigger. This is why real hunters hate canned hunts on private clubs, you aren’t really hunting, and you can’t trust the people around you to know what they are doing.

Fallenmonk, nothing about this incident indicates any level of thought. Like I said, you can’t do this with laws, it requires social pressure.

Of course, in the USA, nothing will be done and more innocent people will die. Because in the USA, innocent people have no value.

In a country where someone like Dick Cheney can get away with shooting someone of the stature of Harry Whittington, what else can be expected when some unimportant innocent is killed. And just BTW, as someone who knows weapons very well, I can say with some certainty that Cheney did not shoot Whittington from 90ft as claimed, it would have been 15-20ft at the most given the spread and penetration of the pellets. anyone who knows shotguns would know this. You do not *accidentally* shoot someone from 15 – 20ft unless you are drunk or a complete moron (both of which are probably true for Cheney)! Especially when wearing high-visibility hunting gear in daylight! It was reported that Whittington was wearing three layers of clothing, at 90ft #7.5 grain shot (that Cheney was reportedly using) would not have much energy left at 90ft to penetrate 3 layers of closing, and the spread would have pretty well peppered Whittington’s entire body (the rough rule of thumb is that you get 1in of spread for every foot of distance with the shotgun and cartridges being used). The Texas Park and Wildlife Hunting Accident and Incident Report indicates that Whittington was wounded on his upper-right chest, neck and lower-right face areas. The digram on the report shows a spread of about 15-18in, consistent with a shot being fired from about 15ft. It’s pretty hard to believe that any shooter could mistake a man wearing a blaze-orange hunting vest and cap at 15″ as any kind of game bird! Whether or not Cheney intended to shoot Whittington is almost immaterial at this point, the fact that he and the Sheriff’s dep’t lied and it was all covered up (which means it was an illegal conspiracy) is a crime.

I have copies of the official incident reports and ballistics reports, and I am considered an expert in ballistics (you don’t train to be a sniper otherwise).

The first thing I was taught was “Never load a firearm unless you intend to kill someone.”

The landlord says he didn’t have to think: his W.W. II training kicked in; he rolled off the bed, away from the window, onto the floor, and found the best position he could. The bullet hole was clearly visible in the window; another foot or 18 inches and the landlord would have been dead. When no more shots were forthcoming, we all gathered… no one in the house could sleep by then… and called the cops. Amazingly, they came out fairly quickly, on what must have been a tough evening.

About that time, an 11-year-old neighbor girl came to our door, saying she knew who fired the shot. She was as good as her word; she took the cops to the woman’s house and told them what had happened. (Brave girl, eh?) The cops faced down the suspect and told her… falsely… that someone had been hit and seriously, possibly critically, injured. The suspect of course denied firing it; the girl said she had actually witnessed the woman pulling the trigger. The police told the suspect that if our landlord died of his wounds… he had none… they would be back to arrest the suspect. The neighborhood was a lot quieter for the rest of the night.

But for me it was a lesson. Mostly, I stay inside on New Year’s Eve. Not that doing so helped our landlord much…

Not everyone carrying a firearm is an idiot, but at times like those, it’s probably best to treat them as if they are.

And unfortunately, Budtux is right. Only thing to can do to stop an asshole, is bury them.

I know you can’t stop stupidity, but it would be nice of people would stop covering for the jerks, so they can pay for acts idiocy.

These were accidents. The firearms were discharged by mischance, Someone pulled a trigger. In New York it would be criminally negligent homicide. Moronic hunters are charged with it all the time. It is a felony with major prison time the result.

Down here you would pay hell getting the state’s attorney to file the charge, or a local jury to convict, as they think it’s an “accident”.

– Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin