An Ohio man succeeded in drilling himself at a New Carlisle dental office when he appeared to confuse his gun with the cell phone and shot himself in the hand and side.
The man was still in the chair having work done on a filling when he reached for his cell phone with disastrous results. He had a concealed weapon permit, so no charges are expected.
One man started to jump out a window. It would be interesting if anyone brings a lawsuit against the patient for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Darren, I only used the aircraft analogy to give folks an idea of how much a million dollar insurance premium costs for a supposedly hazardous activity. The state has the right to regulate the carrying of weapons as the SCOTUS has ruled, so there is no question that requiring insurance would pass their muster. In Texas the fee is $140 for the license, and there is NO question that is legal. Since the state has itself created the mass arming of significant numbers of citizens, it also has a duty to compensate and protect those who are harmed by this action. When you have a mass of people who are armed in an army, police force, etc.. accidents will happen, and by increasing the numbers of arms legally carried, the state has the duty to compensate the innocent victims.
As a practical matter, I think that an annual fee levied by the state for a victims fund would suffice to establish sufficient financial resources to accomplish this. Your fear that legislatures would mandate huge fees is misplaced since they can do that already and have not done so. If we have a significant number of idiots like the one in this story making the news, then there WILL be a movement to use such fees to restrict such folks. Thus it is better to act now for justice for the victims rather than wait for more egregious incidents and numbers to force the issue.
The point of focus here is not how insuring idiots that wander around with loaded weapons so that if they blow the legs off of a ten year old in a restaurant because their gun fell out of their jacket pocket the victim will be paid accordingly, but the protection of society versus the protection of the rights of an individual. All the rest is nothing more than legal masturbation, which permeates this blog.
The right to bear arms, whether it is taken to the extreme of the second phrase to mean, as some believe, that any one should be able to arm themselves without addressing anything other than one’s individual rights or as the first phrase states by addressing the arming of citizens collectively, responsibly, and in a well regulated manner, carries with it a responsibility to act in the best interests of the society which grants these rights. The point of focus of this event is whether or not the idiot that shot himself should lose this right as would a criminal, mentally challenged person, or other deemed not competent to possess arms. The question is one of identifying the event from the perspective of the society which would view this idiot as having performed a criminal act and therefore strip him of his second amendment rights or at least today’s version that allows him to wander around armed, or viewing the event as ‘Gosh, just another accident, let’s let the good ole boy have his gun and hope he don’t do it agin.’?
The constitutional aspect is irrelevant. The second amendment as it is interpreted these days allows people to wander around armed to the teeth. What is relevant is does society address this from the perspective of the society that grants these rights or from the perspective of the idiot that abuses them?
One should not need vaseline to ruminate over this question. However there a lot of lawyers that visit this blog, so break out the K-Y jelly.
Do you think the gangs will go for the insurance? After all, most gun deaths occur at the hands of gangs.
I’m still wondering how he managed to stuff all that in his pocket.
Randy,
Assigning a mandatory insurance requirement to a Concealed Pistol License in many states would not survive a constitutional challenge. In your comparison with aircraft insurance nobody has a constitutional right to fly aircraft and as a result the state can mandate such insurance requirements. The Shall Issue states more pertinently.
The end game many politicians who are anti-second amendment will use CPL insurance as a way to overburden and dissuade others from carrying due to requiring ever-increasing benefits to drive up the cost of premiums. It would not be surprising to the see ten thousand dollar insurance requirements in the beginning transform later into the multiple million range. The cost to those wishing a permit becomes prohibitive and especially to lower income citizens who desire to carry.
This type of mandatory insurance is just as disenfranchising to lawful Concealed Carry, as poll tax was to voting. Both voting and bearing arms are enshrined into our civil rights as enumerated in the Constitution. Assigning mandatory insurance to the right to bear arms (especially all types of arms that may be carried is analogous to poll tax. if there is a mandatory insurance requirement I believe certainly it will be declared unconstitutional along these same lines.
randyjet
Your approach is admirable as seen from the ‘pay at the pump’ position. There is, however, an inherent class distinction where someone who is a complete idiot, such as the fool in the dentist’s chair who had so little control over his ‘rights’, can simply ‘afford’ to be a danger to society. Carrying a loaded weapon around represents an extreme iteration of a dubious ‘right’. If one demands or exercises this ‘right’ to such an extent and fails to take the appropriate cautions, fails to accept the obvious responsibility to safeguard the vast majority of Americans who choose a safer and more sane approach, then that person should not be tapped for money but prohibited from exercising a ‘right’ that he is not equipped to guard. Rights must be guarded in more than one way. Paying a fine does not reflect the severity of the situation. Carrying insurance is an excellent point and should be included with the mandatory education, mandatory registration, and reasonable argument as to why a person needs to carry a weapon around.
The problem of guns in America is not found in the second amendment but in the irresponsible and cavalier attitude interpreting the second amendment. In the end it comes down to little people carrying around guns to make them feel important. Feeling important is a multi billion dollar industry.
Darren, You will notice that I did not call for banning firearms or concealed carry permits. Too bad you lack the ability it seems to notice simple things like that. To compare a firearm with a glass is beyond absurd since dropping a glass will not injure another. I DID advocate that CWP holders should carry insurance to compensate their victims when THEIR negligence results in injury or death, just as we do with motor vehicles. There is ample reason for this since it is the state that grants this situation being created and the danger that comes from the wholesale distribution of weapons being carried about.
This requirement is not onerous or unreasonable since thankfully such incidents are few and thus premiums or fees will be rather low. For most light airplanes that have a million dollar limit on liability the premiums are not too bad, last time I looked it was around $500/yr. The state could either run the program with a mandatory fee paid yearly, which is what I would prefer, or private insurers could offer it. In Texas there are about 200,000 persons who have the license and a $10/yr fee would yield over $2 million/yr. That should be sufficient funds to compensate the victims of accidental firearms discharges or misuse. Law enforcement persons are covered by their employers if they injure or kill innocent victims, so the victims are covered by that. If we have a victims compensation fund for those victims of crimes, then it is more than reasonable to have a similar fund for those who are hurt by CWP holders misusing their privileges.
Darren
This drivel is most unlike you. You are typically on point. When I read this escape from the peculiarities of the incident to a non sensical mumbo jumbo of, ‘Well if we ban cars that pollute just because they pollute then are we going to ban all cars?’, I can’t help but think that someone else is using your name. All of the ‘dangers’ you listed are regulated by society, freedoms and rights protected by the very regulation of those freedoms and rights.
Inalienable Rights
“Rights are not permissions that are allowed.”
This is not so. Rights are freedoms that are designed by the people of the country or group to which they belong. They do not come from this or that individual or group of individuals within the country to which they belong. They would not exist if not for the people with whom they originated, the people who designed and/or redesigned the country. Unless you are one of those fanatical types that believes in everything coming from a god or another extraterrestrial entity, then rights are people designed, people given, and by people can be taken away; this stands as fact in that when one steps outside of the laws/rights of the society, one’s rights are redesigned. To discuss this intelligently, one must understand that rights come from the society of the moment as it perceives and interprets the Constitution and Bill of Rights, in these here United States.
The question at hand is, therefore, does this idiot get to keep his concealed carry permit and/or should the idiot have his, ‘as perceived and interpreted these days’, ‘rights’ redesigned. If one has the ‘right’ to pursue happiness, move about freely, and other such freedoms, to begin and maintain as long as one abides by the laws, then one loses some, (in the case of prison sentences), and eventually all, (in the case of the death sentence), of these rights when one ignores, steps outside of, and/or breaks the law(s).
A parallel argument is can presently be seen with religion and those who place their interpretation of the freedom of religion above the laws that protect that very right or freedom. The society that provides the rights and freedoms determines the rights of the individuals, not the extreme tenets of the religion which is protected by that society and the rights which it provides. For example, because one is of a particular faith that designs the subjugation of women if the society that protects that faith determines that women should not be subjugated; then the interpretation of the right of freedom of religion emanates from the society as a whole and not the particular religious sub-society within.
The right to bear arms is openly and clearly interpretable. This is graphically present in the words themselves. When one omits the first half of the second amendment the right to bear arms can be and increasingly is interpreted to the extreme in many cases. It permits individuals who have little to no mental capacity to understand just what a gun is to wander around armed and dangerous. When one takes the entire second amendment as the right then one can plainly see that conditions were included and intended, ‘a well regulated militia’.
If one were to take it, as it has been taken and is being taken, in its most biased sense and allows for people to carry pistols in their pockets then it would follow, irrespective of one’s interpretation of the second amendment, that one would be responsible for that right; just as with any and every other right we possess in this society. For the idiot in the dentist’s chair, that wounded himself and put society in danger because he was irresponsible and indeed negligent as pertains to his ‘right to bear arms’, the obvious result should be that, even with the most biased interpretation of this right, his right to bear arms must be curtailed. He should lose his right to wander around armed, dangerously, in the very society that allowed him this right.
Barney Fife?
Accidents happen when handling any type of object, machine, or person. When it is dropping a glass in a restaurant only few take notice. When one accident happens with a firearm, many,many are outraged and declare that firearms are to be banned and all owners subject to extra restrictions.
If we contrasted this with the glass in the restaurant, should we ban all tumbler glasses and impose mandatory training for all wait staff. Or, take away glass entirely from restaurants and substitute plastic. And for those who cannot accept this comparable between a pistol and a glass tumbler, how about this:
The top five causes of accidental death in households according to Meri-K Appy, the president of the Home Safety Council.
1) Falls
2) Poisoning
3) Fire and Burns
4) Airway Obstruction
5) Water
Notice that accidental firearm discharge is not among these.
So, if we really wanted to be safe from all things having the remotest risk we should all live in rambler homes with cabinets on the floor, no cleaning chemicals or laundry detergent, no indoor heating or kitchens, eat only food having the consistency of pureed baby-food, and bathe using a hand pump.
Not the lifestyle you might want but it is safe and sanitized for your protection.
It is too bad that he missed shooting himself in the head. Would have saved the dentist some trouble, and made him eligible for this years Darwin Award. His permit should be revoked immediately, and he should lose his right to own firearms since he has proven himself a danger to himself and others. I hope that we can ALL agree on that measure that he should not be allowed to own a gun.
Another armed idiot in my neighborhood went to a restaurant near where I live, and “forgot” he had a pistol in his coat pocket. He threw the coat over the back of his chair, the gun fell out, discharged, and hit an elderly woman at another table. Another instance of armed fools being allowed to carry. If we drive a car, we are required to have liability insurance, so it seems reasonable to me that if you are a CWP holder that you be required to carry one million dollars liability insurance BEFORE you get the permit. This poor woman, while she was not killed, was forced to spend months in the hospital and all the pain and suffering that she cannot sue for under Texas law now. Thanks to the GOP.
Clearly this weapon did not have a safety or trigger lock, so probably a revolver. I always thought it would be too cumbersome in a pocket. How big of a pocket did he have, anyway, if he had room in there for a cell phone AND a revolver? Is this like Mary Poppin’s carpet bag?
With a pistol, unless you already have one in the chamber, you have to remove the safety, chamber a round, and THEN shoot yourself in the side and foot, all one handed.
He would have been an idiot to have been using a trigger lock on a carry gun. Lot’s of guns don’t have safety’s Karen. Not a single one of the millions of Glock’s on the market have one. Many people, myself included prefer not to have a safety on a hand gun.
Holsters, are the accepted way to keep one from inadvertently hooking the trigger as this guys seems to have done. Holsters are especially important for pocket pistols, that are often in 380. I can not imagine carrying a pocket pistol without a holster.
The trigger pull on most revolvers is also pretty high, a good bit less than say a stock Glock.
Either way he should have had his gun in a pocket holster…..
Either way the guy’s an idiot and should never be allowed out in public with a gun. This is one way to filter out the armed idiots out there. If you are stupid enough to shoot yourself in the side when reaching for your cellphone, then you are too stupid to be allowed out in public with a weapon. Or you can blather about trigger locks and other such B&**s^$#. Where is Darwin when you need him? Why couldn’t the idiot have aimed a little higher and the world would be a safer place. If this society lets him out and about with a gun then we have failed.
Rights are not permissions that are allowed.
This guy learned the hard way. Let’s hope he at least
goes out and buys a holster.
The idiot journalist that wrote this story did not even provide enough details to
be able to figure out for sure what happened.
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. So, any person with a minimum degree of common sense would agree that some people should not have guns, so those people don’t kill people. This is already on the road to being established: criminals, psychopaths, etc. Unfortunately we arm to the teeth first and determine after the damage is done, kind of like the ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ philosophy that has cost America the middle class, the first spot in Automobile production, and a lot of other ‘We’re number one.’ first places.
The problem isn’t with the second amendment, regardless of the perverse manner in which it has been interpreted by a gun nut who is no longer with the decision making gang of nine. The problem is with the woeful lack of common sense and intelligence in America. The guy is inept enough to confuse his gun for his cell phone, and he fires off a potentially deadly round, a round that could have killed some innocent bystander. This mutt is not innocent, he is simply inept. That’s why there are laws that address this sort of behavior, but not in the sacred la la land of gun ownership. His right to carry a concealed weapon should be revoked and his right to own weapons be severely scrutinized, perhaps education, the education that anyone and everyone should have to undergo in order to get anywhere near a gun; something like a drivers license. This is the sort of negligence that provides us with hundreds of stories each year about children and others being slaughtered because of stupid people’s ownership of guns. Unfortunately it is the child of the parent who leaves the gun for the child to find and with which to shoot itself, that is killed and not the parent. We grieve for the parent who has lost the child when we should be grieving for the next child and imprisoning the parent.
The right to own weapons without any control is not a right but simple nonsense. We can be intelligent stewards of our garden or let natural selection take its course. Eventually all the idiots wandering around with guns will kill each other off. Unfortunately they will take many innocent people with them.
The irony is if gun ownership is so sacred, if guns are so sacred in this dysfunctional country, then why aren’t they important enough to be allowed only into the hands of those intelligent and responsible enough to take care of them and the society which bestows this ‘sacred but perverse right’. Handing out a concealed weapons permit to anybody and everybody, especially and idiot that is capable to mistake it for a cell phone, is beyond ironic, it is stupid.
Perhaps the concept of concealed weapons needs to be readdressed. If someone is so far gone that he or she feels the need to carry a gun around with them, then to address the rights of the majority of people who would rather they not walk around, go to the dentist, Starbucks, etc packing guns and paranoia, perhaps the rule/law should be not concealed carry but open carry. If a person is so far f*%$ed up that they fear for their life to the extent that they need to carry a gun, then they are also a threat to society. This has been proved many times, enough times to be out of the realm of argueability. They should be required to carry their weapons on the outside, in full view, so that those of us who can recognize a fool, and idiot, this danger, can target them and avoid them like the plague they are.
Precisely why they make holsters….. he obviously did not use one.
What Justice Hilmes said.
I’m sure he was one of the “good guys” with a gun who is going to keep us “safe”!
Little Shop of Horrors?
Take his gun away. Drill him on some details.
You can’t make this stuff up, can you. I don’t think he took any of the courses concerning the proper handling of a concealed weapon.
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.