CC Shoots Self in Leg, Calls it an Accident

Wow.

The headline reads, “Accidental shooter in Salina theater knows guns”

No. No, I don’t think he does.

This is a guy who, while fumbling in his pants pocket in a movie theater, fired the pistol that was in that pocket. Fortunately, he shot himself and nobody else.

A video interview of this shining star of concealed carry begins with him saying, “I just had an accident. Accidents happen to everybody.”

This takes me back to when I was a child, and I would do something wrong. Maybe not intentionally, but like any kid I would break something or otherwise mess up. Called to the carpet, I used the standard excuse that makes everyone blameless: “It was an accident.”

There! No one is to blame. It was a mysterious thing called “accident,” in which nobody is at fault and personal responsibility evaporates.

Dad never bought it, though. His standard response: “There’s no such thing as an accident.”

Translation: Someone is responsible for it.

So when I watched the self-shooter talk about “accidents,” I knew he was doing, as an adult, what I once did as a child: Copping out.

When the gun fired, the bullet entered his thigh. Witnesses heard him shout, “I’ve been shot!” and “I just got my conceal carry license.”

Our genius denies those exclamations.

He did take a little responsibility:

I’d say my biggest mistake here was probably I didn’t have a holster. And that is on me, for sure.

But the story wraps up with the suggestion that the gun itself may have been at fault:

Deneault says the Salina police still have his gun right now.  When he gets it back he’s going to have it checked out just in case the accident was because of a manufacturing problem and not simply operator error.

Told that the theater was supposed to have been a “gun-free zone,” he dodged again, saying he didn’t see the signs and that he wasn’t the only person carrying a gun in the theater.

Evasion-o-rama.

Perhaps saddest of all, his child may never benefit from a father who believes in personal responsibility.

Stories like this make all gun owners look bad. And I hate that.

What do you think?

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.