Samuel Benally Jr., 26, of Phoenix, Arizona wanted to show how dangerous it is to keep loaded guns in the house. He succeeded too well. Benally, who thought that his own gun was unloaded, put a 9mm to his head and pulled the trigger — killing himself in front of the two neighbors.
Such tragedies have befallen officers who mistakenly believe that guns at home are either unloaded or have a safety on, here.
For the full story, click here.
In Russian Roulette, is First Place better or worse. Alcohol must have been involved.
rcambell,
Your biasedness against guns is completely unreasonable and inane. I have handled firearms since age 6 and then in the military, as a hunter, and as a federal law enforcement officer. Any person who shoots himself or herself has something wrong with them mentally, be it temporary or chronic. That includes an LEO or anyone else who causes a self-inflicted gunshot while cleaning a firearm.
I knew a fine, topnotch CHP officer who “accidentally” shot himself during a routine cleaning of his service firearm; however, he was also going through a breakup with his wife.
Fortunately, my friend survived, although his career and his marriage did not.
Mojo:
To assert legalized gun ownership should hinge upon whether people have successfully used them in self-defense, is like saying whether we should torture hinges upon whether the torture produces useful intel.
The principle of matter is independent of the practical results.
jw –
You were correct; that was an incredibly pro-gun site, using Kleck and Gertz research, but thanks for pointing that out beforehand …
From “Myths About Defensive Gun Use and Permissive Gun Carry Laws”
http://www.bmsg.org/pdfs/myths.pdf
The Myth of 2.5 Million Defensive Gun Uses Per Year:
Kleck and Gertz’s claim of 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year is derived from a telephone survey of 5,000 American adults conducted in 1992. Fifty-six respondents to this survey reported that they had used a gun in self-defense during the past year. Kleck and Gertz multiply the proportion of respondents in their survey who report a defensive gun use (X / 5,000 = Y percent) by the number of adults in the U.S. (around 200 million) and the number of defensive gun uses equals 2.5 million per year. They estimate that in 670,000 of these incidents the would-be victims used guns when they were away from their homes.
Many people are amazed that projections about national phenomena can be made based on a telephone survey of a few thousand adults. While many surveys of this type can provide useful information about national phenomena, in this particular case the public’s
skepticism is warranted. The primary problem is that, even if the Kleck and Gertz’s estimates were accurate, defensive gun use is a relatively rare occurrence in that only 1% of respondents reported a defensive gun use during the previous 12 months. As David Hemenway of Harvard University has pointed out, inaccurate reporting of these events by a relatively small number of respondents could lead to population projections that are orders of magnitude different from the true incidence. For example, if one-half of one percent of the survey respondents incorrectly reported that they had used a gun to defend themselves against a criminal attack during the past year, the estimated number of defensive gun uses would be twice as high the true number.
rcampbell sed:
I’m constantly amazed how nonchalantly accidental deaths by firearms are treated. This kind of event, deaths by and of spouses in highly emotional domestic disputes, personal revenge shootings, road rage and children playing with guns all seem acceptable to gun owners as long as they get to keep their own guns. The psychological gymnastics required to allow for these unnecessary deaths in order to shoot guns either as sport or to kill animals for fun is beyond my comprehension.
________
I don’t want a gun primarily for sport or to kill animals. I want one for selfprotection against those who do not value my life as I do, and will take my property as if it were theirs.
I get a small thrill target practicing, but it is comparable to the thrill I get on a video game.
You collectivize the injuries resulting from the existance of guns as an indictment of legalized gun ownership.
Would it make you happier knowing that illegalized gun ownership will still exist, and all the injuries then will be sustained by victims of human predators, robbers, burglarers and violent theives?.
Old saw – If guns are made criminal, only criminals will have guns.
I feel that you are incredibly presumptuous in the stance that you know what is right for me, better than I do, be it for guns, drugs, or whatever.
Mojo –
Here is a table of the various published studies/surveys on defensive gun uses: http://guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html Keep in mind, the website is unabashedly pro-gun, however, the tables are taken from a peer-reviewed criminology journal.
jw –
“May I ask you, what do you say to the hundreds of thousands to millions of people who defend themselves using firearms every single year in this country?”
Where did you get this statistic? Is it published?
Dredd:
how is this guys death a microcosm of the Bush II war years?
Maybe it is a metaphor for harming the body politic through stupidity?
bUDDHA:
Darwin Award nominee?
This is a microcosm of the Bush II wars.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/book-of-bowser.html
rcampbell:
You are absolutely right. We should reduce drug regulation. 🙂
rcampbell:
No psychological gymnastics are required. If someone fails to wear their seatbelt and drives 100 miles an hour on a road where that isn’t tenable and dies, we should feel horrible for his family and maybe even him, but we would not be able to avoid pointing out that the guy was an idiot and the cause of his own demise.
In this case, the guy blatantly ignored three of the four inviolable rules of gun safety. Those rules exist to provide redundant protection against accidents. Metaphorically speaking, he drove his car with no seatbelt, 200 miles per hour with a blindfold while drunk around the lip of the Grand Canyon.
As for the other types of death, yes, they are horrible, but all required an act by a human being. An inanimate object did not simply “go off”. May I ask you, what do you say to the hundreds of thousands to millions of people who defend themselves using firearms every single year in this country?
To amplify my thought, we heavily regulate drugs because of the potential for some to misuse, abuse or otherwise use them unsafely in ways that can cause death. But gun owners demmand unlimited access to weapons designed specifically to kill things and are far too often used intentionally and unintentionally to great effect of that purpose. Guns are legal, marijuana, for instance, is illegal. This despite, to my knowledge, no one ever dying of an accidental pot overdose versus X number of accidental gun deaths per year.
rcampbell
“A Saudi Arabian inventor has filed for a patent on a potentially lethal science fiction-style human tracking microchip, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) told The Local on Friday.
But the macabre innovation that enables remote killing will likely be denied copyright protection.”
I’m constantly amazed how nonchalantly accidental deaths by firearms are treated. This kind of event, deaths by and of spouses in highly emotional domestic disputes, personal revenge shootings, road rage and children playing with guns all seem acceptable to gun owners as long as they get to keep their own guns. The psychological gymnastics required to allow for these unnecessary deaths in order to shoot guns either as sport or to kill animals for fun is beyond my comprehension.
Natural selection at work.
nal:
good point. very good point. Although some insurance policies do pay out on suicide after a certain amount of time, if I am not mistaken.
Poor guy, I guess he did not pay attention in the gun safety class.
Unless he committed suicide by means that wouldn’t look like suicide, for insurance reasons.
Number one rule in gun safety
ALWAYS treat a gun like it’s loaded!! Even if you KNOW it’s not loaded, you need to handle it like it is.
That guy was a moron to do what he did. I’m not exactly sure just what he was trying to prove.