A Texas man accidentally shot a child while officiating a wedding in Lancaster County on Saturday, the sheriff’s office says.

Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said deputies were sent to a wedding at Hillside Events near Denton on a report of a gunshot wound.

Deputies learned that 62-year-old Michael Gardner, the wedding’s officiant, fired a gun to get everyone’s attention.

“He was going to fire in the air, and as he did that, it slipped and went off,” Houchin said.

The gun was loaded with a blank that Gardner made with gunpowder and glue.

  • yeather@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’m all for background checks, even mandatory safety classes, it’s the random banning of features that gets me. Banning firearms because they have a pistol grip or more than 10 round magazines makes no sense. The problem is most people who think like this get lumped in with the crazies.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The right was given when guns were muskets. I have no issue following the forefathers intended right. You may have all the muskets you want but if it’s not needed for hunting or defending your home from an intruder then you shouldn’t have it. Nobody needs a hundred round clip or full auto for an intruder.

      • RedKrieg@lemmy.redkrieg.com
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        1 year ago

        I hate to argue against you because I agree that nobody needs a hundred round clip or full auto for an intruder, but the forefathers’ intended right wasn’t “people should have muskets”. It was much closer to “the people should be armed in case of tyrrany by their government”. The intention was for people to defend their other rights by force, making it more difficult for the government (or an invading force) to take over (this was immediately post-revolution mind you and much of the bill of rights was in direct response to british soldiers’ activities). Of course they also thought we’d be reforming the government and drafting new constitutions as the culture changed, but of course that never happened.

        I am not a historian, just a pedant.

        • ThunderingJerboa@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I mean I get you are playing Devil’s advocate but its clear we have also moved far those ideals. You are right the founding fathers didn’t just say “people should have muskets” but we also have to think in the context of the times, private companies were also able to be armed with naval cannons but in the modern day I don’t think Pepsi, Coke, Johnson and Johnson, or Nestle have an battalion of M1 Abrams and F22 raptors and the such. Like we are told we have the right to bear arms and in those days would be able to purchase the same arms that the military uses but I don’t think I would want a world where every idiot can somehow afford and operate nukes, apache helicopters, etc. Hell while full automatic weapons aren’t “technically” illegal in the US they are heavily regulated and expensive to possess and we the common people are boxed out owning such devices. So its clear we are “compromising” on the vision already quite a bit. Hell I would hope even some of the most die hard conservatives would think a private citizen owning the right such devices would be a bit much as well.

        • Whiskey_iicarus@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

          https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/

          The founding father’s used capitalization to put emphasis on certain terms. It seems to me that they wanted the well regulated Militia, made up of the people, to keep and bear Arms to protect the State and by extension themselves from a tyrannical federal government. If they intended the people to bear arms, why did they add the terms Militia, State, and Arms with emphasis but the people without it?

          The only other place in the Constitution that speaks about what constitutes a militia is the fifth amendment, and it specifically only protects a Militia when it is in service to the government, which again is capitalized because they wanted emphasis that it was a proper militia and not a make shift one.

          • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I agree with you, but I wouldn’t read that much into their writing. The English language was even more lawless in their day.

            In fact, the German-style capitalization of nouns may have just been a stylistic choice by the calligrapher:

            Modern printings of the Constitution that follow the engrossed copy of the original can be identified by the many stylistic features in which Jacob Shallus’s calligraphy departs from the style of the printers of 1787. The most conspicuous difference is Shallus’s capitalization of almost all the nouns, in contrast to the very limited presence of capital letters in the work of the printers. The capital letters now help to give quotations from the Constitution, when taken from modern prints that follow the engrossed copy, an air of authenticity.

            https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/fall/const-errors.html

      • yeather@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The Second Amendment was never about hunting or home defense. It was about arming yourself against the government and to defend your other rights by force. In which case you should have every feature you can afford. Also, about muskets, the founding fathers understood the march of progress would eventually create bigger and more powerful smalls arms, they even wanted the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater for their army to stay ahead. To think the second amendment only covers muskets is moronic.

      • havokdj@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Cool, so we’ll be taking those away from law enforcement and the military too then, right?

    • PapaStevesy@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      If they actually out-and-out banned anything, I’m sure it was for monetary reasons, not for health and safety. But idk, it seems like a small price to pay, you still get to feel like John Wayne whenever you want. Sorry you can’t really fuck up that paper target like you want, but don’t worry, it’s dead.

      • yeather@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The second amendment wasn’t made for plinking, hunting, or home defense. It was made to allow the common citizen to defend their rights by force against the government. In which case you should have every feature you can afford available to you.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      For what it’s worth, people like you are necessary if we’re going to have a future without gun violence while maintaining gun ownership. My understanding is that banning specific guns really doesn’t do anything.

      Most people stop at that, but I appreciate that you go on to say what will work instead. Mandatory safety classes and comprehensive background checks that include psychological evaluation are necessary. And if someone rabid comes into a safety class and says they want a gun to make a point or uses a racial slur in the process, they should be denied ownership and that should be recorded in a manner that background checks will see it. They’d be free to retake the class, but until they reform their behavior and show responsibility, they won’t get a gun.

      I reckon that’s probably agreeable to you? I think it would go a long way. The other half of the puzzle is strengthening and enforcing the laws we currently have on the books. Police need to be held accountable if they refuse to enforce a gun law, including prosecution as an accessory to murder if warranted.

      There’s so many times after a shooting when information comes out that they were a troubled individual who showed some violent tendencies. That should have been caught in advance.

      • yeather@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        At this point it’s been proven psych evals don’t really work, firearms classes and background checks should be plenty to stop people with issues and allow us I not have our rights infringed upon.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Works for me. We should just have an option for a medical provider to say they don’t believe the person will be safe with a gun – this goes for not only homicidal tendencies, but people at risk of suicide.