Someone once told me that being assertive means understanding that your needs are just as important as anyone else’s. And then she hit me. True story. When it comes to gun safety, people tend to prioritize. It’s not right; all firearms safety rules are just important as each other. Ensuring that a gun is unloaded—before handling or storage or transportation or just about anything, really— is generally considered the cardinal rule of gun safety. But “muzzle awareness” is equally critical. If you never point the damn thing at anyone, ever, then even if you somehow manage to fuck up the unloaded bit, you won’t shoot anyone by mistake. Of course, that means you have to follow (arbitrarily assigned) rule three: be aware of what’s beyond your target. Even if you haven’t chosen one. If our I GO OTD had followed any of these safety strictures, the Rain City rifleman would have protected his right to be a total moron bear arms. Oh, and not shot his neighbor. Through the floor. Details after the jump.
Seattle police were called to the apartment on the 4000 block of NE 50th Avenue just after 1:30 p.m. When they arrived, the found a 44-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the head. They talked with him and his upstairs neighbor, and they figured out that it was an accident. The suspect had the rifle resting with the barrel aimed at the floor.
It’s nice when cops and civilians can put their heads together like that, despite the fact that one of those heads is shot to hell.
After putting a sling on the rifle, the man pulled the trigger without realizing that the rifle was loaded. The shot went through the floor and struck the other man in the head.
The victim was taken to Harborview for treatment of the wound, described as non-life threatening. The suspect was taken to the King County Jail and booked for investigation of reckless endangerment. The rifle was taken as evidence.
I’ve got one more thing to say, courtesy of Paul Simon: One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor.
