See that caption above? Yeah, that’s not what happened, exactly. “A Texas teenager was participating in a water gun fight when she was unsuspectingly hit in the shoulder with an actual bullet,” nydailynews.com reports. “The unidentified 15-year-old was at a party in the Houston suburb of Spring when a 40-year-old family friend’s 9mm handgun discharged during a barbecue. She was taken to a local hospital and is expected to survive after the bullet hit her in the shoulder, about an inch from her neck, according to KPRC.” Uh, that’s not really it, either. Sins of omission and all that. Here’s what really happened . . .
Witness Lawrence Martinez told KTRK that the adult man at the water gun fight was going to get his dry clothes and began spinning his real pistol on his finger before it went off.
Two shots were heard — one hitting the unsuspecting teenage girl and the other hitting a car five houses down the road.
So the negligent discharge had little to nothing to do with the water gun fight, except perhaps for the fact that harmless gun fun may have inspired the shooter to show off. Yet the media is happy to lead readers/viewers to think that somehow someone having a water gun fight “escalated” play time by introducing a real gun — with near disastrous consequences. Why? Because guns!
Yes, well, even without that so not happening, the Texas gun twirler well and truly qualifies for TTAG’s IGOTD award. Spinning a loaded gun is about as stupid as it gets (Hollywood gunslingers be damned).