A stupid, pointless death. Darwin must be laughing…

I’m afraid this man is a very good candidate for a Darwin award for 2020.

A Chesterfield County man who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound last week was spinning a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol on his finger when it discharged, fatally injuring him, police said.

The man, Kenneth Dickerson, 57, was standing outside his home in the 8300 block of Hull Street Road “twirling or spinning the firearm on his finger” when it went off about 6:30 p.m. July 14, said Chesterfield police Lt. Brad Conner.

Dickerson died of his injuries after being taken to a hospital.

“It looks like he was literally playing with the gun, spinning it, and the gun went off,” Conner said.

There’s more at the link.

He’d clearly never heard of the Four Rules of Firearms Safety – or, if he had, he presumably thought they didn’t apply to him.  One wonders how many people will mourn him, and wish he was still alive.  Parents?  Siblings?  A spouse?  Children?  All left bereft, due to an act of crass stupidity.

People, please don’t play with your guns;  and if you see anyone else playing with their guns, particularly in so stupid and irresponsible a manner, get as far away from them as possible, as fast as possible.  If you don’t, you may get caught up in such a tragedy as well.

Peter

12 comments

  1. Yes, it was a rule one failure. It was also a failure to understand firearms. Single Action (Cowboy) guns do not go off when twirled because no one has cocked them. Play stupid games stupidly and win the stupidest prize.

  2. All the fault of Hollywood? I'm guessing real gunslingers in the old west didn't spin guns but it looks good in a movie.

  3. I've known a couple gun spinners and done well it's fun to watch. All of them do it with SA revolvers that are checked and rechecked and confirmed empty.

  4. I have left a range session early on more than one occasion for that very reason. Sometimes a nitwit is trying to teach his girlfriend how to handle a firearm. I choose to be elsewhere in short order.
    P.S. I couldn't find the Jeff Cooper commentaries in print form, so I downloaded and printed them out myself. Filled a 3" ring binder.

  5. When I was teaching my nephew gun safety as a child, I added another rule to Cooper's Four: "A gun is not a toy, don't play with it."

  6. In the immortal words of Curly Bill Brocius,
    "Well…'Bye!"

    The departure of such a towering intellect is a net gain for planetary mean IQ.

    Video of the event would be comedy gold.

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