We all know that rifles don’t just “go off.” Or, at least they shouldn’t if they’ve been properly maintained and have only been worked on by proper gunsmiths. Then again, people have been known to do some extreme modifications to their guns to get them to fire faster and whatnot. It looks like one such kitchen counter gunsmith modified his rifle so drastically that it accidentally went full-auto after being accidentally dropped, killing a 5-year-old and wounding another woman in the upstairs apartment . . .
From the Associated Press:
Authorities say a 5-year-old girl has been killed and a woman wounded in Grants Pass after a man apparently dropped an assault rifle and it went off, firing a burst into an upstairs apartment.
The Grants Pass Daily Courier reports a 30-year-old man was arrested Thursday night on charges of manslaughter, assault and illegal possession of a machine gun.
I’ll just say this: there’s a reason that I have a plate of AS-500 steel sitting in the corner of my apartment. Whenever I need to clear a gun, that’s where it gets pointed. No exceptions. And for this exact reason.