Accidential shotgun fire?

A 17 year old boy in my small town was killed recently by a shot in the chest from a shotgun. The victim and some buddies were hanging out in the gun owner's garage. The gun owner was the father of the boy who fired the gun. Rumor is that the shotgun "fell" off a shelf and as the owner of the gun's son tried to "catch" the falling weapon it fired, killing the victim instantly. The owner of the gun said it was loaded because there was a shell he couldn't get out last time he used it. The owner was in the house when the event took place. Or so the story goes.

Here in the middle of nowhere, even criminal laws are enforced more according to who supposedly committed the crime then the crime itself. The boy who "caught" the falling gun is from a family who is local royalty. The details of the accident haven't been published, only the general facts that the boy was accidentally killed by another minor and the police have no reason to doubt that the death was accidental.

Is it possible to fire a shotgun while attempting to catch it? Isn't there some criminal negligence even if that is what happened (assuming the rumors are true)? Shouldn't loaded guns be stored someplace where they won't fall and kill someone? If local authorities won't investigate a death, do state authorities typically have the authority?

has to be stored without a shell chambered as we have had cruisers involved in accidents and the shotgun has gone off, something to do with a free floating firing pin.

I'll be damned.

Can shells get stuck? Which is the reason this gun was stored loaded. Are there laws in most states requiring owners to store guns safely?

chambered round so it is possible, and ive seen wierd accidents that you would never believe had happened until the ME comes back and gives you the evidence. State law varies as to what safely means, you could argue that the weapon was in the barn and loaded due to coyotes or some such, personally my handgun is always on my hip and always cocked, and my shotgun is always got a full mag.

it was in a garage in a residential neighborhood. No chickens for the coyotes.

How do you store your shotgun to prevent such mishaps?

The accidental pronouncement was made at the scene, the police chief didn't wait for anything so formal as a medical examiner's report.

both are loaded at all times and just need to be cocked to fire. A lot of times just the cocking of the weapon that distinctive click clack is enough to win whatever confrontation you are dealing with....

nt

meanwhile the murderer walked off free as a bird.

inside the trigger guard, it certainly could go off. That's a damn foolish way to leave a shotgun (or any firearm) lying around, however. I'm not a lawyer, but in the common use of the term I'd call this extremely negligent...

All in all, however, it sounds like BS.

improbable part of the story is the gun fell off the shelf on its own. Huh?

bumping the shelf of removing another object dislodged the gun.

If the explanation is true, a whole long string of stupid and unlucky things had to happen, starting with the owner leaving a loaded and ready-to-fire gun in an unstable place. It's not impossible - there are thousands of stupid people doing stupid things every day of every year - but I can think of more probable explanations...

but happened differently. I'm betting the boy fired the gun at his buddy without realizing it was loaded, a version which would almost certainly carry criminal consequences, even in the middle of nowhere. The victim was shot directly into his chest.

...Every gun safety rule in the book (not to mention common sense) says you break it down to render it incapable of firing. I'd have a strong suspicion negligence is involved there somewhere. I'm not lawyer enough to know if it fits the bill for "criminal negligence", though.

The story seemed impossible, but it is only improbable.

over the last 40 years. I argee that to leave a live round-called a "shell" in shotguns, not a "bullet", is remarkably stupid. Unless the owner is totally incompetant or continuously drunk there is almost no way the shell could get stuck inside the chamber - 2 possibliities - if the shell was a paper hull rather than a modern plastic hull, and it was swollen from age and moisture or if it was a re-loaded hull that was sized
incorrectly. Other than that, I doubt this story.
Shotguns - pump action and auto loading - have been around since the late 1880's and are among the most reliable firearms around.

Guns NEVER "go off"by themselves - someone has to pull the trigger on a loaded chamber.
As for the "Floating firing pin", I am sure police shotguns have a lot of heavy usage and many do not get the maintenance they should - that should not happen.

I recall a case here in the '60's where a guy shot his girlfriend "accidentally" 8 times....with a 6 shot revolver. (Meaning he had to manyally empty the fired brass and re-load the gun.)

Sorry to be so long winded, but guns just do not "go off"- people shoot other people.

mark

You don't put a gun away with a shell stuck in it, it's like a bomb waiting to go off. I have two Mossbergs, one old is an old pump that I love and the other is the newer 930. I can take them both apart and put them back together.

My thing is, a gun isn't like a car. You can drive a car without knowing how everything works because people take their cars to the mechanic to have it fixed. Guns are different, if you own one you have to own it all the way. You have to know how to handle it, repair it and at the very least, you have to know how to store it without a shell being stuck in it.

Guns kill people. If you don't know what you're doing with guns, someone, sometime will die.

The whole story seems fishy to me.

I went skeet shooting at a public range a few weeks ago, and a father and son were there. They each had matching black semi-auto pump shotguns, and the father jammed his. My friend and I watched as the two of them jimmied with the gun with their car keys, and even looked down the barrel, before we went over and stopped them, gave them a brief, but polite, talking to about not looking down the goddamned barrel of a jammed gun, and then helped them disassemble the shotgun to remove the shell.

Turns out they were using the wrong gauge ammunition.

It wouldn't have taken much for one of them to blow the other ones head clean off right there and then, or for them to be dumb enough to bring the gun home and put it up on a shelf somewhere still jammed.

the level of stupidity of some people is both shocking, and not to be underestimated. At the very least this case should be tried as manslaughter by the owner of the gun, imho. If you left your car in gear and running on the street and it ran over someone you'd get criminal charges against you, they should in this case as well.

Same name we give the fellas that get too much scooter for their experience level. Seen it happen time and time again.

I have to tell you, I've been a guy all my life and as I get older, I look around and see more and more pure unadulterated stupidity around me and I have to wonder if it was a woman on board that pointed Columbus in the right direction.

Leaving the car in gear is the perfect way of looking at it. I'm no lawyer, but I have to figure the guy gets a manslaughter charge.

probably would be prosecuted for some sort of criminal negligence.

The police will attempt to recreate. If they can, the shooting will most likely be declared an accident. If it can not be duplicated, its going to get real sticky, real fast. Depending on the state there may be other issues, such as improper storage.

As has been noted already, it would be extremely irresponsible to leave on a shelf a weapon that had a live round stuck in the chamber.

Things don't often fall off of shelves all by themselves, and I think the probability of everything lining up for the shooting to have occurred as claimed is extremely low.

because someone forgets to make safe after cocking the shotgun and puts it back inthe vehicle, adrenaline can do that sometimes so accidents can sometimes happen.

Usually when somebody sets off a gun by trying to catch it, it means that they accidently grabbed the trigger. That's why it's generally recommended never to try catching a loaded gun. Of course, it's also possible that these boys were playing with something they shouldn't have, and the "accident" story they presented is to cover up some more negligent behavior.