On Sunday, a man at a Florida gun range accidentally shot and killed his 14-year-old son. While William Clayton Brumby was firing at a target, a spent shell had bounced off a wall and fell into his shirt collar. When he reached back to remove it — using the hand that held the gun — he accidentally fired, hitting his boy, who was standing directly behind him, in the jugular. Even in his grief, Brumby holds to the NRA line:
“The gun didn’t kill my boy. I did,” he told CNN.
“Every round in the gun is your responsibility. When it fires you need to stand to account for it it. That’s what I’ve spent the last two days doing, accounting for my operating error.”
No word yet on whether the law will hold Brumby accountable for his operating error. Should charges be filed? I don’t know; this isn’t a straight-up case of negligence like leaving a gun out where a toddler or madman (or woman) can easily access it. He almost certainly reached back for the shell instinctively because it was hot.
The possibility of this sort of incident — even in a “safe” space like that gun range — seems like a good reason to choose hobbies that don’t involve products that are designed to kill things, especially if children will participate. But you know, even activities like scrapbooking have their risks too, amirite?
