Current mood:

sad

Reflections on a Texas Accident
KSAT is reporting that a 14-year-old named Taylor Michalec was killed in a hunting accident on Wednesday. According to the report, the trigger on his grandfather's gun snagged on a branch or vine, causing the gun to discharge.

This story made the national radar screen since the gun was reported to be an AK-47. Whether it was in fact an AK-47, one of the many derivative designs, or an "AK-47 style" weapon is only of tangential interest to me. While I admit to some curiosity as to the effectiveness of an AK-47 as a deer hunting rifle, I can't see how the gun model had anything to do with the accident.

This was not a full-auto weapon. I don't know the magazine capacity, but that is irrelevant when only one shot is fired. There's nothing obvious about the AK-47's design which would make it susceptible to this sort of accidental discharge. Nor can I see how the weapon's aesthetics and style contributed to the accident.

So if you want to debate "assault weapon" regulation, please do so elsewhere. AK-47 or not, this death wasn't the gun's fault.

What does interest me is that no charges are to filed.

I have no reason to believe that the news report is inaccurate, or that this tragedy was anything but an accident. But for this to have occurred the snagging would have had to redirect the barrel at Taylor, somehow release the safety and trip the trigger. This would be a truly unfortunate concatenation of events.

That is, of course, unless the safety was off. Texas law states a person acts with criminal negligence "when he or she ought to be aware if a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur." To my mind, walking in a line through brush and vines with a safety off qualifies.

I'm not a hunter but this alternative explanation seems far more likely to me.

I realize this what a family tragedy this is and can only imagine how Taylor's grandfather must feel. That said, to close a case like this with only minimal investigation sends the wrong message about gun safety and gun responsibility.