A 56 year-old man in Sparks, Nevada went to see the latest installment in the Bourne action saga, “The Bourne Legacy.” He’s licensed to carry a concealed weapon, so he was packing heat in the movie theater, just like all the would-be defenders who chimed in online after Aurora to insist that if only they’d been there carrying a gun themselves they would have stopped James Holmes dead in his tracks and saved the day.
But this guy is no Jason Bourne. What happened was no action-hero stuff. The guy sat down in his seat, the gun fell out of his pants onto the floor, where it promptly discharged and shot him in the ass.
Yep, he “accidentally shot himself in the buttocks.” Reports say “injuries are not life-threatening and no others were hurt.”
Look, I’m not saying that everyone who’s going to legally carry a concealed firearm is more “Naked Gun” than Jason Bourne. But this kind of thing happens. Everyday people aren’t action heroes or even NAVY Seals 99.9% of the time. It just goes to show the insanity of gun enthusiasts insisting that if the Aurora theater had been packed with people carrying guns it would have resulted in no collateral damage, that each of them would have expertly trained their sites on Holmes in the dark, fog-filled theater with bullets flying, and that not one stray bullet would have killed an innocent.
Please. The chances of us shooting ourselves in the asses is probably a good deal higher than that scenario.
Sure, it’s a bonehead move to tuck a gun into your pants with the safety off. Many of us aren’t boneheads. But give guns to a big enough cross-section of the population, and you are guaranteed to get some boneheads in there. It was pure luck this guy just shot himself in the ass instead of shooting someone else in the head.
And there we have it: another reason we shouldn’t have guns in movie theaters.
August 15, 2012 at 4:32 pm, Hot Links August 15, 2012 - Robot Mutant said:
[...] Good news: someone actually got excited during a showing of The Bourne Legacy. Bad news: it was because he shot himself in the ass. [Death and Taxes] [...]
August 16, 2012 at 1:39 pm, David Miller said:
I have to agree that we see way too much of this kind of negligence. Do these people not pay attention in their LTC class? I think that besides the usual legal penalties for a negligent discharge, the persons LTC should be suspended until they can prove that they are taken the training class again and have purchased a suitable holster. A second incident should merit permanent revocation of his LTC.
August 17, 2012 at 5:47 am, William Crafton said:
Why doesn't this go without saying? Do people really need to be "reminded" of this? Man, the future of humanity is looking really bleak.
August 17, 2012 at 6:30 am, Chris Odom said:
Idiots shouldn't have guns in movie theaters. That being said, why should I be unable to carry because of the morons? You can't safety label the world, stupid people will always find a way to hurt/kill themselves with things that intelligent people can operate safely.
August 17, 2012 at 1:34 pm, David Miller said:
Well, evidently, people do need to be reminded. This is not the first such incident, and it won't be the last, even though it must be the easiest thing to prevent.