“The Macomb County Sheriff says a female customer at the show accidentally fired a gun not realizing it was loaded,” wxyz.com reports. I’m not sure this needs saying but anyone who handles a gun should safety check the firearm to ensure that it’s unloaded each and every time they handle the gun. Give it to a friend to check it out? Get it back. Check it again. Like an airplane crash, negligent discharges (ND) almost always involve a chain of mistakes, often by a number of people (don’t forget bad training, inadequate supervision and silent bystanders). In this case both the gun’s owner AND the woman test firing the gun are responsible for the ND. And then the gun owner again . . .
The Sheriff says the owner of the gun, a 64-year-old man from Marysville, went to inspect the gun and ended up firing it again. Two women and one child were hit with bullet fragments but were not seriously hurt.
What are the odds the owner walked over to the woman and calmly ask her to surrender the weapon after the ND? My money’s on him trying to grab it from her and causing the second ND. A responsible gun owner does not compound the mistakes of an irresponsible gun owner (the person who’s holding the gun owns it as well as the owner) by doing something irresponsible to prevent a negligent discharge.
Remember: no matter how bad things seem, they can always get worse.