That headline explains exactly what happened today.
Kentucky State Rep. Leslie Combs (D) accidentally fired her semi-automatic handgun in the state capitol building Tuesday night just before Gov. Steve Beshear (D) gave his state of the state address, WHAS11 reported.
Combs was unloading her gun in the Capitol annex office when it went off. The bullet hit the floor and ricocheted toward a bookshelf, according to WHAS11.
Rep. Jeff Greer (D) was in the room at the time, but Combs said she was following safety procedure and that nobody was in harm's way, WHAS11 reported. Nobody was injured.
"I thought it was totally clear," Combs told WHAS11 Wednesday. "I am a gun owner. It happens."
It is somewhat baffling how the justification boils down to "I'm a gun owner..it happens." Must count as one of the most lame excuses I can remember.
While the bullet rattled around out of harms way, and no one was hurt, Representative Grover makes a serious mistake by saying 'nobody was in harms way'... the representative who discharged a weapon accidentally was in harm's way. She could have easily shot herself thanks to this careless attitude.
We are so tied up in everyone has to carry weapons everywhere now that state representatives, even fellow democrats, feel empowered to think that walking in to a state building with a loaded semi-automatic as part of their concealed carry is A-OK as long as they unload it before getting into the chamber.
A society that believes everyone has to carry around lethal weaponry to survive is not a culture that looks out for each other. The moment we reach the conclusion that we have a duty to deal death as justice, we might as well go back to the wild wild west.
I don't remember, at any point in my lifetime such a desire to over-equip everyone with guns as they walk around.
These things don't 'just happen'. They happen because you chose to carry a gun. If you were carrying around any of the non-lethal forms of self defense (mace, tazer, whatever) you wouldn't be sending bullets flying around your person.
head slap