Sunday, April 17, 2011

"Teenager dies after accidentally shooting himself in the head"

This may have been an accident, but it could have been so easily avoided.
It happened at about 1:30 am Saturday morning on the 300 block of South San Gabriel. Police say a group of teens had gathered in a vacant lot in the area. At some point 16-year-old Joe Tenorio pulled out a gun. Police believe he may have pointed it at his head and accidentally pulled the trigger.
(from WOAI-TV)

Let me say it again: Russian roulette is not a cool game to play. It's not even a cool thing to pretend you're playing it, because when it ends badly, it ends very, very badly.

4 comments:

Keith Alan K said...

I still don't get the "accidentally" part.
Either you pull the trigger, or you don't.
Guns can and do just sit there for years (decades...a century +) doing absolutely nothing--perfectly harmless.
Pull the trigger, and all hell breaks loose.
Not too hard to figure out, yet people claim all the time that "it went off accidentally".
Every time I hear that, my BS detector goes off.
They are trying to weasel-out of killing someone by playing dumb, and unfortunately there are jurors that don't understand the simple cause-and-effect of guns.
No magic, no wishful thinking, no remorse. You HAVE TO pull the trigger with a round in the chamber and safety off, and the gun is going to destroy whatever it's pointed at every time.

If you shake a can of beer, it WILL spew when opened.
If you leave cheese out in the sun, it will dry out.
If you flush a toilet, water swirls, etc.

Shooting yourself in the head requires TWO willful and deliberate acts--pointing a dangerous weapon at your own head AND pulling the trigger.
How can you "accidentally" make TWO dangerously bad decisions at the same exact time?

Keith Alan K said...

On the slim chance that it really WAS Russian Roulette, please tell me it was a revolver and not an automatic!
If someone wants to play RR with an auto, let THEM go first!

Albatross said...

Of course, in Russia, you would think they would know that Russian roulette is played with a revolver and not a semi-auto.

You would be wrong. Witness number 1 on this Oddee entry.

(WARNING: The link above is a bit disturbing, especially if you watch the video embedded there.)

Sabra said...

People think that accident=carelessness. My nine-year-old believes this fervently. I am working on disabusing her of the notion. (Not involving firearms, though--she knows the basics of gun safety.) Look at how many motor vehicle collisions are called accidents...