https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjpPvclzY6k
Chad Olm was showing his nephew his gun collection. Mr. Olm brought out his GLOCK 27 equipped with a laser sight. He put the sight on Hunter Pederson. According to news reports – which are often inaccurate in cases of firearms-related negligent homicide – the boy reached for the gun. His uncle pulled the trigger. A single gunshot wound to the head ended Hunter’s life. As the above report points out, muzzle discipline would have averted this tragedy. A tragedy that reflects badly on all gun owners, even though it should no more indict responsible gun owners than drunk drivers impugn the majority of automobilists. Here’s how the Pocono Record recorded the event . . .
Olm did many things right. He kept his weapons locked in a security safe. He supervised the children as they handled the weapons. But then he made a series of fatal errors: He failed to make sure that the Glock was not loaded. He aimed the gun at the child. He pulled the trigger.
Now the boy is dead, his family is devastated, and Olm faces charges of criminal homicide, recklessly endangering another person and endangering the welfare of children.
Anyone who has spent time around guns should know that they have the unfortunate habit of going off, often at unexpected times.
According to the editorialist, gun safety is beyond human control. Which means it’s not Olm’s fault really. It’s the guns! The damn things are both evil and seductive. “Did Olm simply fall sway to the fascination guns hold for many people?”
Anyway, the media’s fascination with fatal negligent discharges isn’t entirely a bad thing. Every ND reminds gun owners to observe the four safety rules – for everyone’s sake.
[h/t Tim McNabb]
Sounds like murder in the second degree or manslaughter in the first. This kind of stuff makes me sick!
Agree.
Seriously, who in their right f-ing mind points a gun at somebody and pulls the trigger in jest?
OH THE HILARITY OF POTENTIALLY SHOOTING YOU!
“Anyone who has spent time around guns should know that they have the unfortunate habit of going off, often at unexpected times.” Oh my F***ING God!?!?!?! I know we see some retarded shit on here from lefties but wow, that one is particularly bad. Wow. I seriously can’t contain my awe of this stupidity.
I can’t tell if they’re that stupid, or a smart ass.
Yet, about two stories down, everyone is excusing – and joking about – someone else’s negligent discharge/dangerous, incompetent actions.
Said a man who’s never done anything stupid or careless.
Or so he would have you believe.
Not with a gun. No excuses!
Because nobody got hurt in that story. The difference is huge. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a cranium.
God! I hope you typed that in your sarc font!
“… and the gun went off, as guns will …” Phillip Marlow, in the Big Sleep
Guns do have the “unfortunate” habit of going off, sometimes unexpectedly.
People have the unfortunate habit of driving drunk, people have the unfortunate tendency to not supervise their children, et cetera.
Not all people. Not all guns, and generally guns need help. It’s a simplification, but they weren’t blaming the hardware.
Or was it not unfortunate, and was it expected?
If a gun is loaded, you point it at someone, and you pull the trigger….. Yes… the outcome should be expected.
Nevertheless, the Four Rules apply. Always.
It was a Glock! They do go off on their own! Just ask any TTAG reader that has criticized Glock’s lack of an external safety.
Not real certain how much sense that makes. Frankly, tho I am not an expert, mostly I would expect a gun to go off when you pull the trigger, admittedly because that is the way it has happened with me. How was that an unexpected time?
If that had been me, I’d probably have turned that GLOCK on myself immediately. I couldn’t live with something like that. Therefore: safety rules.
I couldn’t agree more, and who would want to? But his son was present also and had just witnessed his big cousin be killed, the last thing he needed to see was his Daddy eat a bullet also.
Not for nothing but absolutely for everything! 4 RULES 4 RULES …………… repeat until you forget your name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No go on a simple ND. More like a negligent homicide.
I don’t see how we can call that negligent homicide. If I line up a baseball on someone’s head and then swing the bat as hard as I can — striking their head and killing them — is that negligent homicide? I don’t think so. Neither is this case.
if you line up the bat to hit the guy it’s premeditaed
agreed … and lining up the sights of a gun — or in this case the laser dot — on a person’s head is also premeditated. Hence “negligent homicide” ain’t it.
I have to agree. I’d say 2nd degree murder.
Negligent homicide because it was an accident; he doubtless expected the Glock to go “Click!” rather than boom. I expect the moron popped the mag but never racked the slide when he last put it away.
The weapon being loaded and cocked changes it from criminally stupid to aggravated manslaughter.
Here’s the rundown:
• inadvertent manslaughter: your pop fly kills the outfielder;
• manslaughter: you hit someone too hard in a bar fight, even if they hit first;
• aggravated: you’re demonstrating your “unloaded” Glock, and…
• murder two: someone whistles at your wife and you beat ’em to death;
• murder one: stalking or lying in wait and killing with premeditation.
Clear?
EDIT: murder one with special circumstances: rape, premortem mutilation, cannibalism, killing kids et cetera to make things unusually unpleasant. Otherwise known as capital murder.
A pop fly killing an outfielder is not manslaughter. Manslaughter is a crime. It would be classified as an accidental death.
So, we drop 2nd degree murder on the testimony of the killer, because the victim can’t testify? I don’t like it.
Bad uncle, dead nephew, devastated family.
Safety rules, people.
Saw this earlier of course. There’s no excuse for his actions. This is just beyond awful. I pray for the boy’s family.
And I don’t even have to say how sickening it is for a writer to use such a tragedy to interject his own misguided delusion into such a tragic story:
“Anyone who has spent time around guns should know that they have the unfortunate habit of going off, often at unexpected times”
Really? I’ve spend literally my entire life around guns since I was younger than I can remember and I’ve never seen them have a “habit of going off”, let alone pointing themselves at children’s heads first.
Uhhggghh
A tragedy that reflects badly on all gun owners
Respectfully — that’s bvllshit.
It’s a tragedy that reflects badly on the assh0le that pulled the trigger. It’s not my fault nor the fault of any other gun owner.
Will the wingnuts exploit this? Sure. And if not this, they’d just make up something, which they seem to do with aplomb anyway.
RIP
Of covrse the gvn grabbers will jvst make something vp. Those sneaky vnderhanded svb-hvman scvmbags have no scrvples.
Fvck ’em.
Is there a world shortage of “u” today?
Off topic but why is a W called a double U when it is clearly a double V?
There is always a world shortage of me.
You don’t have to be a “wingnut” to say this makes gun owners look bad. There have been four or so high-profile fatal accidents in the last couple days. Every one of them reflects badly on us.
Sorry, but there’s no smug, self-assured, aggressive way to spin this. A gun owner f**ked up as badly as he could. It’s a black eye for us.
‘Tis true! Time for you to show us the way, and disarm yourself.
What? No? What sort of example is THAT?
I’m disappointed in you.
He HOPES it will reflect badly on all gunowners, and will do everything he can to see that comes to pass.
In the previous post about “my ND”, I admitted to circumstances for an ND of my own, I had it pointing in a safe direction. One rule out of the four prevented injury.
But my god pulling a trigger intentionally with a child in the sights?
Even if you are absolutely sure the gun is not loaded. You should not point it at anyone and pull the trigger, especially a child. Very messed up situation.
Forget pull the trigger, it should never be pointed at someone. I pay no attention where my barrel is pointed when I am cleaning it, as in, it is not in the gun! Otherwise, never.
What a troglodyte a&=@!=e. I am a fan of manual safeties. Real “safe action”. I hope uncle Chad spends a lot of time behind bars.
Honestly, I think old Uncle should shine one up for himself at this point.
If he didn’t remember to unload it before storing it, and didn’t remember to clear the action before handling it, and didn’t remember to not to point the gun at a person he didn’t intend to kill, and didn’t remember to keep his finger off of the trigger, what makes you think he would have remembered to engage the safety?
He failed in just about every way possible.
“…what makes you think he would have remembered to engage the safety?…”
Well said.
Or it was premeditated murder. This happens a lot.
Don’t bother trying to reason with another Glock hater.
So, in YOUR world, it’s OK to point a loaded pistol at your young nephew and then pull the trigger, so long as it has a manual safety? Great, we’ll change the Four Rules and add yours right after Rule Three: Rule FOUR: “Disregarding Rule One,Two and Three is jes’ fine if’n you gots a manual safety.” Rule FIVE: “Know your target. A close family member is probably the one that you know best. Go for it.”
Then, when the inevitable murder happens, the shooter can bleat, “Yeah, but I din’t know that the safety was off!” Sounds like an affirmative defense to me.
Tell me about it. At all hours of the night the pops and bangs coming from cases and closets and safes all over the house. No human hands involved whatsoever. They just go off! Gets really annoying.
Had that happen once.
Bloke at the range handed me his weapon to inspect, but I didn’t know it were loaded and c0cked.
I had it by the foregrip with the barrel pointed upward when the pin slipped the [badly worn] sear with the muzzle all of a foot from my face.
A Mosin is – loud. Also, I am less trusting these days about others’ discipline.
This is so sad and shame on a grown man for pointing any weapon at a child! BUT I hate how the media called it a “laser glock 27” they’re trying to make it sound more dangerous and scary so the libtards can get sheeple to vote for a gun ban.
A dead child, an adult’s life ruined, and a whole school full of children and their families who will probably hate and fear guns for years afterward, all because you couldn’t take 5 seconds to drop a mag and rack the slide. Good job asshole.
And couldn’t be arsed to point the gun in a safe direction.
Or not even play around with a gun in the first place. They are not toys.
Not sure that one is fair. A 10-year-old relative asks me to see a gun, I’ll show it to him. But it will be confirmed safe before he is in the same room. Semis slide locked, revolvers cylinder open.
5 seconds? Hell it takes no time to JUST NOT POINT IT AT ANYONE YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO KILL!
Negligent and horrible but it only reflects on the person who pulled the trigger and nothing else.
When this story came out my anti gun friends on Facebook went ape. They in veiled ways said I was too blame along with all gun owners. For every gun used to save a life thousands are used for evil. So yes, incidents like this tar all gun owners in the eyes of anti gun people. Of course they ignore that many more people are saved by guns than are murdered. I never even jokingly point my guns at anyone just for this reason. These people have said in the past that it is more manly to just fist fight because nobody dies. FBI stats say otherwise.
You are quite mistaken. Those people are NOT friends. The sooner you realize it, the better for you.
Yeah, Get new friends.
Facebook friends. That has a different definition than friends.
I’m looking forward to the video of a 105-lb woman fist fighting a 230-lb rapist.
This has been dominating the news where I live. Local tv news are now questioning why the gun doesn’t have a manual safety, and people are demanding answers. They’ve even interviewed the owner of a LGS, who explained why some guns have external safeties, and others don’t. Northeast Firearms is the store.
They are still glossing over that this was simply the act of a negligent idiot, who deserves whatever justice he receives.
I’m sure a majority of other posters will agree with me on this; The moment the laser landed on the boy I would have had a knee-jerk foul-stomach feeling about the safety of the direction of the muzzle and moved it immediately to a safe direction. I just can’t even IMAGINE being this irresponsible with a firearm. I previous poster used the word, “incomprehensible”, to point a firearm at a child. I totally concur.
I won’t say that a loaded chamber indicator would have prevented this incident, but I will say that almost all of my handguns have them. They really do work and they help a lot.
When you are blind.
I don’t know how many of mine have the kind you refer to, but almost all semis have the ever popular “unloaded chamber” indicator, LOCK THE SLIDE! I do not leave them like that, but as soon as I pick one up, I drop the mag and lock the slide. Quick, easy, what is wrong with people?
First of all, this makes me sick. What kind of ignorant moron does this? And the pain of the family..makes me sick..
Second…
“Anyone who has spent time around guns should know that they have the unfortunate habit of going off, often at unexpected times.”
Dafuq did I just read? Somebody seriously wrote this. I guess cars have the same unfortunate habit of crashing into others at unexpected times. Never are the operators of those vehicles at fault. But they should know that those cars will act out.
Um, based on the description in this article, the gun owner is way beyond “irresponsible gun owner of the day”. He is a murderer and should spend the rest of his life in prison, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Yeah, we really don’t know where the writer got his facts, but its a difficult thing to imagine a reasonable explanation.
What a tragedy. That guy will live with the guilt and shame of this for the rest of his life.
What an idiot.
Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. But he needs some hard time to try and wrap his brain – which, when placed on the edge of a razor blade, will resemble a BB rolling down a 4-lane highway – around it.
Wow. So, he intentionally pointed the gun at his nephew and pulled the trigger? I’m glad he didn’t have the balls to turn the gun on himself after that. Assuming he’s not a sociopath, he’ll have to live with what he did for the rest of his life. Every day, it will haunt him. No legally (or illegally, for that matter) administered punishment can compare to what he will have to deal with. Serves the bastard right. I can only hope that the parents of that poor boy torture Chad and literally rip his limbs off. Force the son of a bitch to go through life as a quadriplegic (oh, and blind because they ripped his eyes out and then forced him to eat them…. Please?), in addition to being tormented by what he did. God this makes me sick.
And it’s absolutely disgusting that the author chose to interject his own (completely wrong) thoughts about the dangers of firearms. We all know that there’s is no limit to how low the antis will go, but it still makes me want to rearrange his face.
I doubt it was intentional. But he screwed up to major safety rules. Keep the finger off the trigger and always check you firearm before showing it to anyone.
And perhaps a new rule! If you are going to playfully point a gun at people and pull the trigger, see to it that your own head is the first target.
Irresponsible? Complete and udder moron. Makes us all look bad.
MOOOO!
Milk it for all it’s worth.
“Mr. Olm brought out his GLOCK 27 equipped with a laser sight. He put the sight on Hunter Pederson.”
Even if a gun was unloaded and properly safety checked, why aim the laser at a child?! Why not safely aim it elsewhere so the kid can see the dot? No amount of rules would’ve applied to this schmuck since he couldn’t even pass rule #1.
Agreed, I think pointing the gun at the kid was the most grievous violation.
What if he did this but the boy was not hit? Would everybody be as sympathetic to Mr. Olm as most people were to Paul M.?
To me, endangerment is the same crime as criminal homicide given exact actions by the perpetrator.
Mr. Olm knowingly aimed the laser sights on the child. KNOWINGLY. That’s the ultimate difference. Paul M. didn’t “knowingly” have a ND.
Mike, I’m not defending either one of these ding dongs. Negligence is negligence and all are unacceptable behaviour.
Something very important just occurred to me. Apparently the uncle is claiming that the young victim was reaching for the pistol when the uncle (for completely unexplainable reasons) pulled the trigger. I can only imagine that the uncle thinks that explanation somehow implies some sort of excuse. So here is what occurred to me: I have to wonder if the young victim knew that his uncle should not be pointing a pistol at his face and rightly started reaching to push his uncle’s pistol away.
In other words I wonder if the young victim’s reaction was in no way, shape, or form the cause of the gunshot but was quite literally a defensive move?
It’s certainly possible. Sounds logical to me.
Once or twice when I’ve taken an inexperienced person to a gun range to shoot, I’ve physically (gently) moved the gun while the other person was holding it to get it pointed in a safe direction.
Whether the uncle was attempting to create an excuse or not, there is nothing in the universe that excuses his behavior.
I can certainly say that if someone pointed a supposedly-unloaded gun at me, I’d slap that away faster than you can say “f*** that”. And possibly slap their face immediately afterward.
And depending on the situation, they might recover from the slap to discover me pointing a decidedly NOT unloaded gun at them, demanding to know WTF!
This is why in my gun classes I actually force everyone to practice unloading and checking guns before handing it to anyone else and I often yell at the guy at the LGS who hands me a gun without first removing the magazine and opening the slide to show clear.
Really, it is that simple. Practice it and do it and then it become second nature like putting on your seatbelt.
My prayers go out to the family, one stupid lapse in safety and you cannot take that bullet back.
How the hell is no one pointing out that this is what the “My Negligent Discharge” story could have easily been?? Yet, everyone there is joking and sharing stories of being too dumb/attention span-challenged to handle firearms.
I didn’t see a whole lot of joking.
Maybe you need to go back to that story and revisit the comments.
While I don’t kid around much with NDs… even the ones that don’t hurt anyone… surely you see the differences between the two stories.
Don’t you?
Fler…I’m with you on this one. That makes four of us with some common sense on TTAG.
Over at the other forum, we were called assholes, high and mighty, ND’s waiting to happen. It was like an AA meeting over there with so many hugs to go around.
This made me sick.
What a complete moron.
Words can express how disgusted, saddened, and angry I am after hearing this story.
First off the story should be overwhelmingly horrifying to any parent.
Secondly to have it shoved in your face unexpectedly by MDA Twitter users who can barely contain their glee makes you take a sharp breath and hold it.
Avoidable tragedy involving a young child is terrible, watching Moms rubbing their hands together over it makes you realize how despicable they really are. Truly disgusting.
I find it disgusting how MDA almost act like they are happy it happened so they can justify further infringements of the rights of responsible people. This is a terrible tragedy.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”
I would imagine that there is no punishment that can match the Hell this person is now living in. May God have mercy on his soul.
With deepest respect for the family members, and their grief,
and especially the uncle who is undoubtedly trapped in his personal horror for the rest of his life,
I am not judging…that will be done in other places, at the proper time- but…
for new gun owners, media, or anyone else visiting here, understand these comments, here,
and please help out- if anything whatsoever of benefit can come from this story it is this-
education, and spread the word, about the TRUTH ABOUT GUNS:
GOOD HABITS SAVE LIVES, BAD HABITS TAKE LIVES…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_safety
It will never be about the gun, but about the user. Just like we teach our children to “look both ways before stepping off the curb”, “dont put your fingers on that hot stove burner”, “dont poke the fork in the wall outlet”, “put your seatbelt on”, and on and on…we teach the FOUR RULES on guns.
because there are DUMB THINGS YOU DO that will kill you,
and EASY THINGS TO DO, TO BUILD HABITS, to avoid them.
You dont ban the car, the fork, or the electrical wiring, to save a child.
You teach the children to obey the rules, and hold adults accountable, when they dont.
‘Nuff said.
Wow. #1: Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
So you would be ok if he fired a round into the ground? Rule number one: DON’T PULL THE TRIGGER!
Actually, Treat all fireams as loaded should cover EVERYTHING.
Chad Olm was showing his nephew his gun collection. -Sounds like fun
Mr. Olm brought out his GLOCK 27 equipped with a laser sight. -Spiffy.
He put the sight on Hunter Pederson. -Um… what? Why?
the boy reached for the gun. – I might do that if someone aimed a gun at me!
His uncle pulled the trigger. – …(COMMENT MODERATED)
We are all taking this at face value and assuming it was another ND. IT smells fishy to me…
It seems odd to me that he would be that close to the child while “putting a dot” on him, and odder still that the child would reach for the gun with enough force to cause him to accidentally pull the trigger. I am sure the coroner will be looking very closely to ensure the forensics match the story (assuming there were no other witnesses). The question is why would any Uncle intentionally shoot his nephew…
Going out on a really long limb here but I am willing to bet he will do less time in jail for negligent homicide that he would for child molestation… I know its a stretch but something just seems a little fishy with his story…
I’m sorry you thought of that. I hadn’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised; What was a disgusting criminally-negligent homicide could very well be a really disgusting 1st-degree murder.
Things like that aren’t unheard-of; I always question the ‘accidental’ shootings that occur when the husband is showing his spouse his gun, or ‘cleaning’ it, when it ‘accidentally’ just ‘goes off’ and shoots her conveniently dead. It’s always ‘dead, and never just ‘wounded.’ Ever wonder why? I do.
Ugly thought, hope not, but the kid’s final words might have been “I’m gonna tell!”
I agree.
Wrong in so many ways. My prayers to all devasted by this. For the rest of us, a horrid reminder that complacency can ruin many lives.
If this had happened I would throw the book at the perpetrator.
Oops. I meant to say if it had happened in my jurisdiction.
What the hell was this guy thinking? Outside of a DGU situation, even if I know beyond a doubt that a gun is not loaded, I would never deliberately point it at anyone, much less a child. On top of that, I can’t imagine how anyone could pull the trigger on a child, even in jest, even knowing that it was unloaded for a fact. It would go against every fiber of my being. If things indeed went down as the reports indicate, this waste of flesh belongs in prison, period.
This is very very sad.It should be used in all firearms training classes from Front Site to ALL CCW and basic handgun courses as to the dangers of weapontry.There is NO ROOM for Carelessness or Complacency in the art of the gun.
Even though it is a Constitutional Right,it should not be in anyway taken lightly!
Honestly, to me this is beyond being taught as to the ‘dangers of weaponry.’ The weapon did exactly what it was supposed to, and anyone stupid enough to aim a gun at a child’s head and pull the trigger is beyond training.
Reminds me of the felon prohibition debates. I’m not sure whether this guy should go to jail for life or not, but I’m sure he should be a prohibited person.
Guns have a habit of going off? They’re inanimate objects…they have no habits. None of mine ever go off without my expressed direction…
If only there was some kind of manual device that, when engaged, stopped the weapon from firing at times when it’s not intended to. The result of negligent muzzle control and the “this finger is my safety” mentality.
We could call it a “slide lock”, perhaps?
I know, let’s call it a ‘trigger’! It’d be this little dangly curved thing that, if you didn’t press it back toward you with your finger, the gun wouldn’t fire! We could put it inside a loopy-shaped thing to protect the ‘trigger’ thing from foreign objects or extra fingers getting to it, and call THAT a ‘finger and foreign object protecting loopy thing.’ No, wait–let’s call it a ‘trigger guard.’ Then, we tell people not to put their fingers or other bodily appendages onto the ‘trigger’ thing inside the ‘trigger guard’ thing unless they wanted the gun to fire!
It’s so crazy, it just might work.
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