First off, I'm including another one of these videos, but I'm beginning to wonder whether it's counterproductive to do so. I think they're instructive in terms of showing what sorts of idiotic things people routinely do with dangerous weapons (and tools, toys, etc.). Further, it's instructive that people think these things are worth videotaping. And there's another level of meta-issues wrapped up in the fact that people think these things are funny in the "Ha ha! We should try that!" sense. But here we are laughing at it, too, even if for a different reason. Maybe we shouldn't. I don't know.
Anyway, it's time to catch up on a few stories that I missed the first time around, and bringing us almost up to date with more recent ones. One of the patterns emerging in this, aside from the startling number of murder-suicides and people who clean loaded guns, is that reporting on these incidents is sometimes slow to emerge. So although I originally set out to document these stories in chronological order, filing late-breaking stories as updates to already posted entries tends to have the effect of obscuring their numbers.
So, on to the news, starting with the episodes missed in earlier lists.
(Continue reading below the fold.)
- PALESTINE, TX, 1/16/13: According to The Palestine Herald, the victim, identified as 31-year-old Edgar Torres of Palestine, was treated for a wound to the right side at Palestine Regional Medical Center around 9 PM Wednesday. Investigators learned that the victim was looking at a handgun that he was going to buy in the 400 block of Cherokee Street when he allegedly accidentally shot himself in the side.
- KILLEEN, TX, 1/16/13: Heffernan, Tennyson and a third man were in the living room of Heffernan’s home in the 3500 block of Pebble Drive on Jan. 16 when the shooting occurred. An arrest affidavit stated Heffernan had been cleaning a Taurus revolver when the gun fired and struck Tennyson in the head. Police confiscated the weapon and noted in the affidavit that with the chamber closed, bullets were clearly visible.
- BEALETON, VA, 1/18/13: “The victim and offender were in a bedroom; the victim was lying on a bed, playing with a cell phone as the offender was unloading a 9mm handgun. “The gun fired and struck the victim in the upper right bicep, exiting through the arm, through the bed into the floor.”
- PFLUGERVILLE, TX, 1/18/13: Pflugerville police are investigating a gun range shooting that sent one man to the hospital Friday night. According to police, the man shot himself at Red’s Indoor Range , located at 1908 W Pecan.
- BOONVILLE, MO, 1/19/13: At 3:07 p.m. on Saturday, the Boonville Police Department responded to an accidental shooting in the 1400 block of 11th Street. A 14-year-old female was found with a gunshot wound.
- KINTERBISH, AL, 1/20/13: 44-year-old Bobby Lee Carstarphen, of Lipscomb, Alabama, died as the result as gunshot wound to the upper chest area along County Road 10 in Kinterbish. Newscenter 11 reported the death as a hunting accident.
- ENON, OH, 1/20/13: Deputies said three men were looking at a newly purchased Glock 9 mm. While trying to disassemble it for cleaning, they said the man pulled the trigger and the gun discharged. Brian Rose, 29, of Holiday Valley, was hit in the ankle. They said Rose was alert and talking when medics arrived.
- KANSAS CITY, MO, 1/21/13: A 35-year-old man told Kansas City police four different versions of how he got shot in the leg Monday night before admitting a friend accidentally shot him.
- ROUZERVILLE, PA, 1/22/13: A former police officer and fire chief fatally shot his wife and wounded his stepson Tuesday evening before killing himself in a home east of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania State Police said Wednesday.
- CLEMMONS, NC, 1/22/13: Davidson County Sheriff David Grice has ruled the two deaths of an Arcadia couple as a murder-suicide. Grice said Friday that he believes Timothy "Shane" Benbow shot his wife, Emily Benbow, and then shot himself.
- HOISINGTON, KS, 1/22/13: Sheriff Brian Bellendir says in a news release that the bodies of 35-year-old Justin Heggemeier and 39-year-old Michelle Heggemeier were found Tuesday night at a farm northeast of Hoisington. Bellinder says it appears Justin Heggemeier shot his wife at close range and then killed himself.
- DEMING, NM, 1/22/13: Deming Police responded to a Tuesday morning shooting, but details are scant as the investigation continues. Police Chief Michael Carillo said his department received a 911 call from central dispatch at about 11:30 AM, that an adult woman had been shot at the 2100 block of S. Silver Ave. He did not say if the man was involved in what was reported as an accidental shooting involving an unspecified caliber handgun, but that he was interviewed as part of the department's standard protocol.
- DAWSONVILLE, GA, 1/23/13: A 58-year-old employee was shot in the upper leg this morning when a firearm discharged at Dawsonville Gun and Pawn, on Ga. 53, near Ga. 400. The woman was taken by ambulance to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, according to emergency personnel. Dawson County Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Goodie said the shooting is being treated as an accident. He said a second employee was holding the gun when it discharged.
- BISHOPVILLE, SC, 1/23/13: Charles Arthur Beasley, 64, who has represented District 6 on county council since 1988 and served as chairman from 1994 until earlier this month, reportedly suffered non-life-threatening injuries when he was struck in the neck, nose and above his left eye during a quail hunt on his farm in St. Charles, according to Sgt. Rick Stevens of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
- CAMDEN, NJ, 1/24/13: An 11-year-old Camden girl allegedly shot in the face by her father Thursday night could be paralyzed as a result of her injuries. According to police and the prosecutor’s office, the shooting happened shortly after Byaer Johnson went to the home in the 1300 block of Thurman Street at around 9:30 PM to visit his daughter. Once inside, he allegedly pulled out a handgun and placed it on the floor, authorities said. When someone then told Johnson to leave, he allegedly picked up the gun and shot the girl in the face, authorities said. Johnson also tried to shoot another man in the home, but the gun jammed.
- GADSDEN, AL, 1/24/13: A 17-year-old male told police he was at a friend’s house on Shahan Street when the older man asked him to step into a room to talk. The juvenile said the man accused him of breaking into his house and pulled out a pistol and pointed it at his head. They struggled and the gun went off, striking the 27-year-old in the arm.
- SUMMERVILLE, SC, 1/24/13: The subject, a 22-year-old black male, came into the family room while they were playing video games, put his hand in his pocket to retrieve something and pulled out a .22 caliber pistol. The gun went off, shooting the victim in the right shoulder.
- MADISON, WI, 1/24/13: Jennifer Boyce and Bernard Grosso were to have been in court on Friday to officially end their marriage. Instead, their lives ended before they ever got to the courthouse as a result of what Madison police categorized as a domestic-related murder-suicide.
- GROVETOWN, GA, 1/25/13: McRee and his estranged wife, Heather, were arguing at their Grove Landing Circle home about their pending divorce when he pulled a .45-caliber handgun and shot her in the left arm about 3 a.m., said Grovetown Department of Public Safety Chief Gary Owens. Zachariah McRee, a soldier, initially told police that the gun accidentally went off, Owens said.
- DES MOINES, IA, 1/25/13: An Iowa gun dealer was hospitalized after he accidentally shot himself in the hand before a gun show Friday afternoon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The man told police he was trying to dry fire, or fire the gun without a round in it. He said the gun was unloaded when he checked it earlier in the week and he didn’t know who would have loaded it. Police found another loaded gun on the man’s table and unloaded it, according to the report. That's the 7th person accidentally shot at gun shows this month, by the way.
- CHICAGO, IL, 1/25/13: A 63-year-old South Side man who prosecutors said shot his unarmed 50-year-old brother to death with a shotgun after the younger brother had asked him to be quiet Friday is being held without bail.
- CARNEYS POINT, NJ, 1/26/13: A man was flown to Cooper University Hospital from Carneys Point after sustaining a gunshot wound to the abdomen, according to scanner reports. The Salem County prosecutor's office confirmed the shooting was self-inflicted and would not pursue charges or an investigation into the incident.
- MYAKKA CITY, FL, 1/26/13: The fiancé was firing a Taurus Model 1911 .45 when a casing ejected and landed inside her shirt. She tried to keep the hot casing off of her by bending over and trying to swat the casing out, but when she did, she unknowingly pointed the gun down at the victim's leg and accidentally fired another round.
- MIAMI, OK, 1/26/13: Police say the wife pulled the trigger and claims it was an accident. Neighbors say they have witnessed this couple having problems in the past.
- PENN HILLS, PA, 1/26/13: Penn Hills police are still trying to sort out details of a home invasion in which two armed men who burst into a home on Westwood Road ended up being wounded, possibly by friendly fire ... [T]he incident began about 1 a.m. when two men--one armed with a .45-caliber handgun and the other with an assault-type rifle--entered the home at 8616 Westwood. Inside were a dozen people, ranging from a 3-year-old girl to adults. The man armed with a handgun emptied the weapon and reloaded and kept firing but no one from the home was hit. Police believe at one point he accidentally shot himself in the thigh. The other man, armed with the rifle, was firing rounds upstairs although no one was up there, Chief Burton said. He ran from the house and was found by police in a nearby house. He had been wounded in the face. "He was either hit by someone else or was hit by his partner," Chief Burton said, noting the investigation is continuing.
- BATON ROUGE, LA, 1/26/13: A 16-year-old boy turned himself in Sunday to Baton Rouge police detectives in the death Saturday of a 17-year-old Baton Rouge teenager who was shot in the back while the two teens played with a gun, a police spokesman said. It was the fourth shooting death in the area since Dec. 29 that involved teenagers playing or passing around a gun.
- BUTLER, PA, 1/26/13: State police say a western Pennsylvania man and woman are dead in an apparent murder-suicide. Troopers in Butler County went to the Center Township home at about 1:40 a.m. Saturday in response to reports of a shooting.
Police said they found the body of 45-year-old Sonja Kummer lying on the ground outside the home with apparent gunshot wounds. Troopers entered and found the body of 49-year-old Dean Vaughn Clawson. Police said he had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said both individuals were pronounced dead at the home.