A few months ago, gun enthusiast Jamie Gilt was accidentally shot when her four-year-old son got his hands on a gun while riding in his car seat. Gilt’s son found the gun and accidentally shot his mother, through the back, exiting her chest. Luckily, Ms. Gilt survived. She’s started a Facebook page that has been set up for the following purpose:
This is a page to connect people that share a common goal. That goal is to protect and expand our 2nd Amendment rights.
Oh. Kay.
Gilt said she read some of the negative messages and comments but "can't take to heart something negative coming from someone that does not know me, or what truly happened."
She said she made the mistake of placing a handgun under the front seat of her vehicle, which led to a horrible accident.
"However, this is not something that is rare," Gilt wrote. "A very large number of people place a gun under their seat every single day, I can only hope that what happened to me will help to open their eyes to what can happen by doing so."
So, according to Gilt, she needed to set the record straight so we could all learn from her mistake and have lots of guns still. Here are a few things she wanted to set straight:
- The gun was not the pretty gun in her Tweet that was shared.
- The safety was not off.
- The gun didn’t slip between the seat.
See, according to Gilt what happened was that her son can unbuckle his seat. He was in his back seat playing with toys. He dropped a toy, got out of his seat, when under the seat, found Jamie Gilt’s gun, and pow. The part that people like Ms. Gilt don’t seem to get is that no one is saying that what happened wasn’t a mistake—it’s that somehow, people with guns want to believe that there are fail-safe precautions one can make that won’t possibly lead to an accidental shooting.
"I have chosen to take this very negative and scary experience and make something positive out of it," Gilt wrote. "I have gone through a lot of training since the accident, and am nowhere near finished. I realize that many of the classes offered are seriously lacking and I plan to do my best to improve that. I will be teaching classes as soon as I am ready, and I will continue to share my story in hopes that it will help just one person make a different decision or get a little more training."
The safety classes she’s taking aren’t good enough, according to her. She’s going to improve these classes; and hopefully she will. But, it seems to show you one thing—gun safety is more complex than just taking classes.