UPDATE: April 18
The Ada County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday that no charges were likely in the wake of an April 13 accidental shooting incident at the Fort Boise Gun Show that sent a man to the hospital.
A 23-year-old man was struck in the eye with debris when a gun show attendee picked up a weapon from a vendor's table and fired the gun. A bullet struck two other guns, scattering shrapnel to a crowd. In all, five people were struck.
The 23-year-old was rushed to St. Alphonsus Medical Center. He is expected to regain his full vision.
ORIGINAL POST: April 14
A Mountain Home man was rushed to a hospital and a second person was treated for a minor injury following an accidental shooting at an Expo Idaho gun show Saturday afternoon.
Law enforcement was called to the Garden City fairgrounds around 3 p.m. following a report of a gun fired inside the main exhibit hall. Witnesses said someone attending the Fort Boise Gun Show picked a large-caliber handgun and fired the weapon into a display, striking two other guns. Flying shrapnel hit two bystanders.
The Fort Boise Gun Show continues through 4 p.m. today at Expo Idaho while the investigation continues.
It was just an accident. The vendor who had a loaded gun on display can't be held accountable - that could happen to anyone. And the guy who picked up the gun and fired it without first checking to see if it was loaded or that it was pointed in a safe direction, it's not his fault. And least guilty of all is the management of the gun show. They can't help it if people don't follow the rules.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Actually Mike, a better term is one used in the military, negligent discharge. I'm betting the victims' phones are ringing off the hook from the local attorneys calling them for this potentially profitable lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. It's always negligence.
DeleteI'm assuming that the same sarcasm flows through all of your comments here--and thus that you would want to charge the gun show organizer and take their guns away. Seriously, Mike? These gun show organizers make rules and try to enforce them. But it's TOTALLY reasonable to hold them responsible if one of the thousands of people at the show breaks the rule.
ReplyDeleteWhen you go this far beyond what any reasonable person would say is the cut off of responsibility for an accident and demand criminal charges and revocation of rights, you sound like a clown.
While I understand why you continue to criticize Mikeb for his perpetual dogmatism and ideological fervor (you believe, rightly I my add, that he knows better), it doesn't serve the goals of your cause to have a reasonable opponent.
DeleteIf Mikeb sounds like a raving lunatic who procures a macabre sense of joy from the deaths or misfortune of the gun owners and conservatives who he disagrees with, he presents a distorted and vulgarian picture of the the anti-gun movement as a whole. Those who may be undecided on certain issues may be swayed by the experience of encountering one of the anti-gun movements patron "crazies".
If Mikeb is to read this, I do hope that he takes into regard that he does his cause more harm than good by emulating some of the more unsavory commenters who frequent this blog. I am confident that he is of a sound mind, and thus would agree.
Yes, Mikeb, do tell us how the management of the show could prevent something like this from happening--without making a gun show impossible, that is. Of course, that's what you really want.
ReplyDeleteTennesseean and Greg both seem concerned with my mention of the gun-show organizer. Isn't he ultimately responsible for what goes on there? Doesn't he face some legal consequences for wrongdoing on his premises?
ReplyDeleteI would think so, but what you guys did is seize upon that in order to deflect from my full accusation which included the vendor and the stupid guy who actually fired the gun.
Nothing to say about them?
Mikeb, I've told you many times my attitude toward people who do stupid or careless things with firearms. Sometimes, I get tired of having to repeat myself.
DeleteMike,
DeleteIt seems pretty clear that the vendor and the customer were pretty negligent. I've been to a show with a ND once. The dealer who did it before the show started was booted as soon as the police had cited him and finished their paperwork on it. Everyone was shaming him for the rest of the show.
We don't take negligence lightly--what we object to is the notion that every accident, however minor, deserves to cause a loss of rights.
I didn't have anything to say about the vendor or customer because I the article didn't have enough information for me to say what level of negligence and idiocy was involved, but it seemed pretty high.
I commented on the organizer because it is ridiculous to hold an organizer responsible for someone breaking the organizer's rules--rules they all set and that they all try to enforce. They can't be everywhere at once, and they can't guarantee that nobody has slipped a round into a gun after it passed the checkpoint where they check to see if it is unloaded.
Your comment about ultimate responsibility would make the organizer strictly liable for anything that happens in the entire show, including any picked pockets, any stolen ammo, etc., along with this incident of anyone violating the no loaded weapons rule by slipping in a bullet, or by bypassing the security check (we don't know exactly how it happened here). This goes far beyond the limits of our liability laws.
Thanks for your reluctant admission. You said "It seems pretty clear" and later, "it seemed pretty high."
DeleteI swear, it's like pulling teeth with you guys.
Reluctant admission? Like pulling teeth? We said something about you going way too far in trying to make the show organizer liable. You then said "Oh yeah, well what about these two!" We immediately responded by telling you what we thought of these two--we don't have all the details, but it looks like they're both a couple of idiots who are in for lawsuits, and depending on the depth of their idiocy (which we don't know) possibly vulnerable to criminal sanctions.
DeleteYou asked once, and you got an answer, and you call that reluctant and like pulling teeth? Hell, there are questions we've been asking you, Laci, and Dog Gone for months. Some of them you finally answer, others you refuse to answer because you declare them irrelevant, and YOU are the polite one. The other two just do hit and runs and never stick around to answer questions or argue for their views.
I'm sorry that we make things so hard by making you ask the question before we answer rather than just knowing in advance what you want us to say. So sorry, in fact, that I'm offering up this performance as a peace offering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCkeQzlQDw