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Buying a Gun Doesn’t Make You ‘Ready’

One of the subplots coming out of the Ferguson mess is the high number of first time gun owners who have purchased a gun for protection. While more gun owners is a good thing in my estimation, simply having a gun doesn’t make you ‘ready’ for violent encounters.

Nothing drives this point home more than the today’s news out of Ferguson that a young woman accidentally shot herself in the head with the gun she purchased to get ‘ready’ for the riots.

A woman appears to have accidentally fatally shot herself in the head with a gun bought to prepare for possible Ferguson-related unrest, according to sources briefed on the police investigation.

The shooting occurred Friday night in downtown St. Louis, the city’s Metropolitan Police Department said, in an area dominated by vacant lots beside a football stadium.

The female victim, identified in a police report as Becca Campbell, 26, was a passenger in a car involved in an auto accident. Her 33-year-old boyfriend was driving, the sources told CNN.

The boyfriend, who wasn’t identified, told police that the couple had bought a gun because of fears of unrest related to the pending grand jury decision on the shooting of Michael Brown, the sources said.

He told investigators that as they drove late Friday night, the victim waved a gun, jokingly saying the couple were ready for Ferguson, the sources said.

Call it natural selection, an accident, whatever, but it’s a pretty sad story. A young life was ended out of some combination of stupidity and ignorance that was 100% preventable. Do you think this would have happened if she had some form of firearms training? I don’t. Even a basic safety course that taught the 4 Rules of Firearm Safety would have likely prevented this tragedy.

Guns are not toys, they are tools. Tools that require a specific skill set. If you’ve never had basic firearms training, please consider getting some. If you live in the US but don’t know where to go in your area to get training, email me, I’d be more than happy to point you in the right direction.

2 Responses to Buying a Gun Doesn’t Make You ‘Ready’

  1. Will November 24, 2014 at 6:40 pm #

    The woman was a Ferguson protester. What was she buying a gun for… concern about her peers in the mob?

  2. Bill January 12, 2015 at 2:17 pm #

    Now, I’m sure I am going to catch a little flak on my perspective, but hear me out.
    When a person goes into a gun shop, and it is clear it is their first purchase, it would be very prudent for he shop owner/employee to go through a thorough lesson on load/unload, muzzle direction, disassemble/assemble, safety features, et cetera.

    This is not the shop owners responsibility, but rather the shop owner ‘looking out’ for the best interests of his clientele. A sort-of “best practice”. Just my two cents.