More on the stupidity of the gun crowd

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Montana Teacher Fires Gun in Classroom

The Associated Press reports on an accidental shooting which happened in a classroom during history lesson.

BILLINGS, Mont. — The superintendent of a rural Montana school district says he was showing students his black powder muzzleloader when he accidentally fired the weapon into a classroom wall during a history lesson.

Dwain Haggard, who used to be a Civil War re-enactor, was showing the gun to five students in Reed Point High School's American history class Friday when it fired.

No one was injured, and Haggard says he can't explain how the weapon was loaded.

He says he usually fires a cap during the demonstration, but this time there was a loud bang and the room filled with smoke.

The ball shot through the "o" in the word "North" on a wall map.

Haggard says none of the students' parents was upset with him. He described the incident as "bitter irony" because he has tried to increase safety in the school district west of Billings.

Well, at least this is an improvement over some recent reporting we've seen: "...when he accidentally fired the weapon..." I'm glad they didn't report that "the gun went off." Of course, his not being able to explain how the gun got loaded, is a bit strange. But the best part of the whole story is this:

Haggard says none of the students' parents was upset with him. He described the incident as "bitter irony" because he has tried to increase safety in the school district west of Billings.

Yeah, that's some pretty funny irony right there. I guess those Montana parents know that Constitutionally-protected, God-given rights require that a certain price be paid in safety and caution.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

To which I made this comment:

I love history and I'm all for living history and such, but reenactors are something else.

I have this picture of the gun going off and filling the classroom with black powder smoke. When the smoke clears, the occupants appear as comic figures with startled expressions, their hair standing up, and soot covered faces.

From the British Army Rumour Service wiki:

"re-enactment is performed by individuals with a keen interest in history who attempt to recreate battles of years gone by to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Disturbingly Medieval to victorian types have access to swords, halberds, bows, crossbows, medieval siege equipment and an even more disturbing knowledge on how to use them. In their favour they drink like fish."

Sorry, shrimp, but most reenactors use blanks while they are playing soldier. It sort of makes sense if you are shooting at each other to do that, or reenacting would indeed win copious amounts of Darwin awards.

Although, this bloke seems to have forgotten that even though his toy was loaded with blanks--it was still loaded!

More on this weirdness at:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Re-enactment

First off, the "I love history and I'm all for living history and such, but reenactors are something else." should have clued in one named "shrimp" that I was getting down on re-enactors, who are pretty bizarre characters in their own right.

Anyway Shrimp's comment was:

"Sorry, shrimp, but most reenactors use blanks while they are playing soldier."

LtCC,
Did I say that they did not?

Regardless of what it was loaded with, blanks can kill at close range. It fired something through the "O" in North, according to the story. At that range, even if it had not been lead ball, a blank would have killed.

As far as safe handling of firearms goes, it doesn't matter if it's a blank or not. It's the same as if it had been loaded with lead ball.

Shrimp seems to have missed where I said:
Although, this bloke seems to have forgotten that even though his toy was loaded with blanks--it was still loaded!
I'll admit that my black powder knowledge is limited to the Brown Bess and I have very little knowledge of percussion firearms, but I do know about blank guns. I also said in my response that the death of Jon-Erik Hexum was rather notorious. Hexum placed a .44 magnum loaded with blanks to his temple and pulled the trigger resulting in a blunt force trauma wound to his skull and subsequent death.

So, blank loads are still ammunition loads.

That wasn't really my focus as my opening sentence points out. Usually, people open with something that is going to get you into the topic, or relating to it. But, the RKBA crowd neglect that since they now believe that the phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" isn't really important to the Second Amendment (at least Scalia did in the DC v Heller decision).

Anyway, Aztec Red's comment was closer to the point:

I don't know why he thought it was a good idea to do something like this indoors. Even just firing a cap can loses debris in the bore and fire it with enough force to cause eye damage to anyone within speaking distance.

Even re-enactors know that blanks and percussion caps can cause injury, so they only fire at each other at distances measured in tens of yards at minimum.

You can count on Aztec Red to say something considered even if it may be something I disagree. He earned my respect with his answer to my question about his relating to the Oklahoma City bombers. I'd read any of his comments and might even publish them.

As I said, my comment was directed toward the waltiness of reenactors rather than gun safety, which the opening comment made pretty clear. Aztec Red gave a more gun safety oriented version of my comment.

Still, you'd think the possibility of filling a classroom with black powder smoke would have deterred this re-enacting wally from bringing his toy to school.