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TELLICO PLAINS, Tenn. – Police in Tennessee say a man accidentally shot himself and his wife while showing off his gun in church.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/16/po ... hurch.html

Parks said the man pulled out .380 caliber Ruger handgun, removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, and showed the gun. He put the magazine back in and returned the gun to its holster.

When someone asked if they could see the gun, he pulled it out saying the gun was not loaded and pulled the trigger.

Rule #1 of gun safety, fail!

Now "People" (a loosely used term) will demand common sense church control laws over the number of shootings that happen at churches. These "people" will say something stupid like ban churches and no one will get shot in a church.

Besides disregarding safety rules I'd say he should not have brandished the gun at all. If the articlecovered all facts I guess he just wanted to show off his gun and perhaps his ego.

One simply does not pull one's pop gun for show and tell any more than one removes one's foundation garments in public to show off how they complement the figure. It just isn't done.

Cooper's Big Four are always at risk for embarrassment in such an act, and that seems to have played out here.

My only sympathy is the guy is in his 80's. This could be age related. If my mind goes, may God grant me the remaining wisdom to recognize my failings.

This is also probably a case for early and uncompromising gun safety training. If you practice a lifetime of gun safety, the brain in your trigger finger, programmed to stay the heck off the bang switch, may save you in an otherwise careless moment.

The wife's injuries sound worse than described. In the left side of the abdomen, out the right. Best wishes for her recovery, and for the shooter's.

Be safe, all.

One simply does not pull one's pop gun for show and tell any more than one removes one's foundation garments in public to show off how they complement the figure. It just isn't done.

Etiquette sometimes it less about niceties and more about good sense and risk management.

Flightmare wrote:
Rule #1 of gun safety, fail!

And rules 2, 3 & 4. Fail, Fail, Fail..

HE KNOWINGLY POINTED A GUN AT HIS WIFE AND PULLED THE TRIGGER!!!

Does anybody else want to know what brand of ammo it was? Two hits with a single 380 round?

My relatives in Tellico Plains have a cemetery named after them. I hope it wasn't distant cousins trying to get there before their time!

I don't believe this is the first time people in church have been accidentally shot by someone showing off their gun.

But please could this be the last one.

We pray in your name.

Amen.

Ironically enough a similar situation just occurred with me on Thanksgiving day. We were watching the football game after eating Thanksgiving dinner and my BIL mentioned to one of the guests that I was carrying a gun (they are liberals so this is all fascinating to them). The other guest asked to see it, so I lifted my shirt and turned my hip slightly (no 30.07 signage in my BIL's house). He then asked me if he could hold it, and I had to explain that I couldn't do that because it was loaded and it wouldn't be a good idea to clear a gun in that room full of people. He understood, fortunately.

Thinking about it now, I probably could have also, correctly, refused to unholster on the grounds that it would be illegal since I wouldn't be engaged in a sporting activity, and I did not control my BIL's house. It would also have been illegal for the non-LTC guest to hold even an empty gun in property that he did not control. That might have been a better approach as it would have given me a chance to point out the absurdity of certain gun laws.....

Which brings me to another question. Did I technically violate the law when I unholstered my gun that night and placed it in the small portable safe that I brought for the purpose. After all, I did have an unholstered gun in my hand for a minute or so while in a location that was not under my control.

Soccerdad1995 wrote:Which brings me to another question. Did I technically violate the law when I unholstered my gun that night and placed it in the small portable safe that I brought for the purpose. After all, I did have an unholstered gun in my hand for a minute or so while in a location that was not under my control.

I suspect that, even under the unlikely circumstances that this actually resulted in a police interview, given the circumstances of the event and what you were trying to accomplish and why, I find it hard to believe that any cop would actually arrest you for it......especially if you didn’t do it in front of an audience.

At our thanksgiving dinner, hosted by my son’s inlaws, there were at least two people carrying that I know of for sure (my son and me), and there were likely others. Nobody cares. The lone exception was my wife, who usually purse-carries her G43, and deliberately disarmed before we left our house because she didn’t want to leave her purse laying around the inlaws’ house with a lot of little kids running around, and one convicted felon in the family. And he, by the way, is probably as trust-worthy anyone else there. He is a vet with several Iraq and Afghanistan tours under his belt, who has had debilitating PTSD and struggled with heroine addiction for a while as a result. He is clean and sober now and faithful to the treatment he is under for the PTSD, but during his dark days, he had a felony arrest and conviction for heroine possession, and did time for it. I actually admire the way he is working so hard to get his life back. In any case, leaving a gun laying round with him there would constitute constructive possession - as I understand it - even though the need for police intervention in that case would be pretty slim. The bigger worry was the horde of young primates running around the house without much yet in the way of personal filters on their own behavior.

Soccerdad1995 wrote:Which brings me to another question. Did I technically violate the law when I unholstered my gun that night and placed it in the small portable safe that I brought for the purpose. After all, I did have an unholstered gun in my hand for a minute or so while in a location that was not under my control.

Unless your brother in law or sister gave you effective notice that they did not want your gun in their house, IMHO (not a lawyer) you didn't not violate any laws.