Back when I started doing Cam & Company in 2004, I wasn’t just the only person doing a live Internet-based show devoted to the Second Amendment. I was one of a handful of folks doing livestreaming at all.
Now we have an entire ecosystem of online content creators focusing on firearms and the Second Amendment, which is very cool to see. The barriers to entry are pretty low, but unless you can provide compelling content you’re not going to get very far.
A 21-year-old Nebraska man did manage to produce a video that would likely garner a lot of attention this week, though I don’t know that it will ever be posted online since it would go viral for all the wrong reasons.
Lincoln Police say a 21-year-old man accidentally shot himself in the leg with a 9mm pistol that he had bought from the store earlier in the day. His girlfriend was taking a video of him demonstrating how to rack the pistol when it was accidentally discharged, according to police.
The bullet hit a major artery in the man’s leg. A tourniquet was applied at the scene and CPR was performed before the man was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Police said he was in critical but stable condition and was undergoing surgery.
I hope he’ll be okay, and I also hope that he’s given up any thoughts of fame and fortune through firearm-related videos. If you can’t even rack a slide without shooting yourself, you definitely don’t need to be educating others on proper gun handling.
None of the local news accounts of the incident have included details about what kind of pistol he purchased, whether it was a new or used handgun, or how much prior experience the gun owner had with firearms.
It’s possible that the man’s pistol discharged without him pulling the trigger, but if this was a new handgun (and perhaps a relatively new gun owner as well) it’s far more likely that this was a case of operator error than a mechanical failure.
The location of the shooting also makes me wonder how much experience the gun owner had. I’d say most gun influencers who are making videos that include handling their firearm will record at a range or their home studio, not the front seat of a car.
In a way, though, the unnamed 21-year-old can still serve as an influencer, even if the video he was making never appears online. In fact, if any good comes from this it will be that others will learn what happened in Lincoln and are careful not to make the same mistakes he did.
The Five Rules of Gun Safety exist for a reason, and it sounds like at least three of them were violated here. Presumably he was treating the gun as if it was loaded, since he would have been the one who loaded the firearm unless the store somehow sold him a used pistol without first checking that there was no round in the chamber. But he didn’t keep it pointed in a safe direction, he did point it at something he didn’t mean to shoot (his leg), and he most likely did not keep his finger off the trigger.
Again, I do hope that he’s going to pull through and fully recover. For his sake, I also hope that he doesn’t upload the video he was shooting when he shot himself. Far better that he maintain his anonymity and get some real education and training. If he does that, then one day (just not today) he’ll be able to put this incident behind him and might even be in a position to impart some wisdom that doesn’t involve “don’t do what I did.”
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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