A Texas man accidentally shot a child while officiating a wedding in Lancaster County on Saturday, the sheriff’s office says.
Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said deputies were sent to a wedding at Hillside Events near Denton on a report of a gunshot wound.
Deputies learned that 62-year-old Michael Gardner, the wedding’s officiant, fired a gun to get everyone’s attention.
“He was going to fire in the air, and as he did that, it slipped and went off,” Houchin said.
The gun was loaded with a blank that Gardner made with gunpowder and glue.
Blanks are not 100% safe either. A blank is what killed Brandon Lee on the set of the Crow back in the 90s.
Sorta, yep! It happened in two parts - for one scene the gun had homemade cartridges with primer and and an actual bullet, but no gunpowder, so that the ammo looked real in close-ups of the gun. At some point that round was fired and the primer was enough to discharge the bullet, which lodged itself in the barrel.
Then, later on in another scene, they loaded the same gun with blanks full of powder and primer but no bullet, so when fired they’d get the usual bang and flash. Except, since there was a bullet lodged in the barrel, the blank round still had enough force to propel the bullet out the rest of the way and into Brandon Lee.
It happened in such a freaky way that it feels like there must be more to it, but just as likely human stupidity and bad luck.
I didn’t look up the actual incident so I wasn’t actually aware of that. What I was trying to say is that I think there’s this thought in a lot of people’s head’s that blanks are completely safe and they’re not. At close range or if there’s some debris in the barrel a blank can be dangerous.
Oh I wasn’t challenging you, sorry - just wanted to tell the rest of the story. I agree with your take.
Oh I never took it that you were challenging me. I was a little amped up. I get pretty indignant whenever I see easily avoidable gun violence. People who leave their guns out for children to find, I’ve read about a guy who was showing off his new laser sight and shot his girlfriend’s child killed him or her (I can’t remember which), the stores feel endless. it really boils my blood. I appreciate that you gave me the details. I always thought it was a foreign object, like a pebble or something, that just happened to be in the barrel.
Sort of. He was actually killed by a bullet that had lodged in the barrel from a previous issue with the weapon. The blank just fired the bullet that was lodged in the barrel.
People have killed themselves with blanks though, usually screwing around pretending to commit suicide and then accidentally doing it. I remember reading about an actor that put pistol loaded with blanks up to his head and pulled the trigger. There’s enough gas force coming out the end to put a hole in you at that range.
Yea, the only way a properly made blank can be dangerous is if the gun barrel is close enough for the ignited gasses to do damage from what I understand. So if you put the barrel right up against something, the gasses will push through and take a chunk with it.