Yes, you read that correctly. A 42-year old man in Texas brought a real gun to a party with water guns, and accidentally shot a 15-year-old girl.
“It was crazy, like you would never expect somebody to bring a gun to a barbecue, or a family gathering at all,” said Micah Stewart, a neighbor.
This was a family barbecue. Who would bring a gun to that?
Stewart says the man, Jason Speights, left the party to go to his car for dry clothes and while there, retrieved a gun, and started to play with it. Speights was spinning the gun around on one finger when it went off. One shot went into the child’s collarbone. The other shot hit a car at a neighbor’s house five doors down. Stewart initially thought the gun probably had the safety on, but instead it discharged and Speights accidentally shot the girl in the collar bone.
According to Click2Houston news, Speights was charged with deadly conduct, a charge that can include jail time.
Once we get past the fact that this guy stupidly brought a gun to a family gathering. How many “accidental shots” do people actually fire? People carry guns for self-defense, but having one in the home makes you twenty-two times more likely to be involved in accidental shootings.
From 2005 to 2010, 3,800 people died by accidental gun fire. One-third of the victims were under the age of 25. Thirty-three percent of homes contain a gun, and forty percent of those have a child under the age of eighteen. Please, people, lock your guns! Keep your children safe.
Texas is not the only state with lax gun laws. Idaho recently passed a law allowing citizens to carry loaded weapons without a permit. You just have to be over 21 years of age, and you can have a gun. This is ridiculous! We don’t need guns everywhere.
Featured image by Dean Hochman via flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
