Source KSL.com – HERE
Salt Lake City, UT – Sixteen-year-old Maile Fine was pronounced dead at Intermountain Medical Center Thursday after an apparent joke about Russian Roulette went horribly wrong.
Though friends with him at the time said he had taken the bullets out of the gun, when Fine pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger the firearm went off and the bullet struck him.
The 4 basic rules of gun safety as advocated by the late Marine Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper can not be stressed enough:
- All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
- Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
- Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
It’s just not worth taking the risk and violating any of those points.
Some popular books and DVDs by Jeff Cooper:
Comments
11 responses to “High School Boy Shoots Self By Accident With Stolen Gun”
Those are 4 very excellent rules. I suppose it would be nice if people that don’t own firearms at least knew the very basic rules of firearms safety and taught that to their children, same as they teach children about the dangers of drugs or unprotected sex, etc.
On a lighter note, when I read Russian Roulette I immediately thought of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRUdtS94bUE
I agree it should be taught in school along with every other “safety” type course. And it should be mandatory, not optional like the NRA Eddie Eagle program, which only some schools decide to get.
Awesome youtube vid! hahahhahah
This is the second negligent discharge post I’ve read recently. I agree with Josh, about the importance of teaching people about gun safety even if they don’t have guns.
I saw a series of pictures in the Google LIFE Magazine archive once that seemed to be of police officers giving presentations in schools during the 1950’s on safe gun handling. I was looking for something else at the time and forgot about it until just this moment. I don’t know necessarily that that’s the way we should go, but I’d be in favor of something like the NRA’s Eddie the Eagle child safety program being presented in schools for the little tykes – and maybe something more 4 rules related for the kids once they get older.
I agree, the Eddie Eagle program is great. I’d like to see it mandatory in ALL schools though, not just the ones that choose to have it.
To be really honest, someone stupid enough to play Russian roulette with a loaded (yes I know the article said he thought he unloaded it, but guess what?) and stolen weapon, probably will never pay attention to proper gun safety no matter how long they live.
Yea :( he was probably trying to be “funny” around his friends.
He be stooopid, y’no? Duh. What are the bets it was a stolen auto-loading firearm? Without even seeing the type of firearm, I’ll put money on that bet. Magazine, chamber, safety. Always. Stupid children with stolen firearms need to be Darwinized in this fashion. Cold? Maybe. True? Definitely.
I wish I could offer you that bet! That was my initial thought too after watching the video where there was no mention of “Russian Routlette.” I figured he removed the magazine from an auto and didn’t clear the chamber. A couple of the news articles online described the gun as a revolver though, and at least one mentioned Russian Roulette.
When in middle school, we had a classmate become the victim of stupidity. While he and his brothers were fooling around, one took his fathers gun, removed the magazine, and then acted out some street thug thing, and ended up discharging the firearm into my classmate’s head. He lost a good bit of himself along with an eye, but lived. Did not see him again until high school, and he was a different person.
Even back then, being exposed to firearms by a neighbor, I knew that it was a stupid thing to have been done, and I think our whole class at least learned that even with a magazine out, there could still be one in the chamber.
Its my belief that without exposing more kids to firearms and safety at a young age, we will only have more of these sorts of incidents.
Chilling story Bryan. Even though he lived, I’m sure that changed the lives of him and his brothers for ever. I agree, the kids need to be educated as soon as possible about proper handling and function of firearms.
[…] again… If the four BASIC rules of gun safety mentioned in my previous post would have been followed, this would never have […]