Since I’ve last mentioned teenagers shooting teenagers with guns by accident, there have been a number of interesting events.

It seems that a 17 year old teenager in Carrick, Pennsylvania was shot by a friend on Sunday, in an apartment next to an elementary school. At first the kid told police that it was a drive-by shooter that got him, but later fessed up. He was not badly hurt, but there is no news yet on if it was Dad’s Gun or some other weapon.

Meanwhile, in Montreal …

Last summer a 10 year old killed a 17 year old while playing with an adult’s gun. And now, the adult, George Lewis Phillips, has been charged with criminal negligence causing death as well as a violation of a firearms related regulation requiring proper storage of a firearm. Details here.

This next story is not a case of a teenager getting his hands on daddy’s unlocked gun and shooting another teenager, but it has such a bizarre punchline I thought you might want to hear about it. A 17 year old kid in Pittsburgh was mouthing off at his grandfather’s wake, and grandma told him to take it down a notch. An argument ensued, and moved outside. There, the grandson yelled at his grandmother, pulled out a gun and blasted her.

He missed and she was not injured. The local news reports, “The suspect’s father said his son does not have a good relationship with his grandmother.” Ya think?

Ok, back on topic: In Tuscon, some people went camping out on Mount Lemmon and brought along three firearms. An argument about whether or not to continue partying erupted amongst them, and teenager Marisele Romero was handed a gun by a friend, aimed it across the campfire at Rene Carrillo, and pulled the trigger. Oh, and the it was Romero’s friend Carrillo who handed Romero the gun, and the assumption was that the gun was not loaded.

On Friday, Oct 7th, after being tried for negligent homicide, Romero was acquitted by the jury.

The jurors were told that there was no way Romero could have known the gun was loaded because … get this … most reasonable people wouldn’t hand a loaded gun (during an argument among teenagers who were probably drinking) to someone who had just told them they wanted to shoot them (Romero had said she wanted to shoot Carrillo during the verbal fight which, by the way, did involve the throwing of rocks).

It was also argued that the owner of the gun, who seems to have been present, and the shooter were not aware of the fact that a gun would fire if you pulled the trigger. They claim to have thought that in order for the gun to be fired, the hammer had to be pulled back.

That case (reported here) is interesting at many levels.

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