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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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Bullshit. This means he took a loaded gun, failed to clear it, put the barrel in the direction of a person, and pulled the trigger. Guns don't just "go off". All while having admitted to relapsing on alcohol. I count four mistakes there, where any one of them not having been made would have prevented this incident.
It's almost like you'd have to intend to make that series of mistakes.
Lets break it down... (mostly for the non-americans who aren't used to guns)
This is the basics... Anyone who's taken any gun safety course would know, any responsible gun owner would know and religiously follow...
If I remember from reading about this when it happened, he's also the only witness. The only other person that could confirm this was an accident is fucking dead. So they just believe him? The fuck?
So, fun fact: Alexander Hamilton may have killed himself.
He supplied the dueling pistols for the duel with Burr, and a few things about them.
He had them custom made with a larger, more deadly bore.
He had modified the trigger to require a much lighter pull than most pistols would have required.
The musical (of incredibly dubious historical value) even makes note of this, he was seen fiddling with the trigger prior to the duel, and selected his pistol first.
Accounts on Hamilton firing in to the air differ, but what is consistent are accounts of Burr seeming pretty shocked when his gun went off. Accounts also pretty universally indicate that he tried to rush to Hamilton after he'd been shot to lend aid before being escorted away.
Anyway, that's not at all meant to refute your claim. Guns generally don't just "go off".
Are you implying that the nation was not formed on the back of a rap battle my good sir?
Yeah the only guns I know of that can just "go off" either have a hair trigger that's worn or are of exceptionally shit build quality like say the Ross Rifle.
If you take the worst gun, modify it to have the lightest trigger possible, if you don't have it just sitting around with a round in the chamber it won't just "go off". It's wild that the simplest safety precaution save a lot of lives but nope these people need their dick extensions to always be ready to go.
Oh I was just making note that there are ways for a gun to to fire by itself for one reason or another when loaded. Regardless making sure the gun is cleared is a pretty damned good way of ensuring it doesn't do that. Or alternatively leave a Ross Rifle behind for the Germans when you leave a trench so it's their problem.
Or they are a Sig Sauer P320...... Which is of good quality but poor design.
They can and do. There's chapter and verse on gun safety - handling, cleaning, storage - to deal with the risk of accidental discharge.
If you treat a gun like a toy (and this guy's testimony certainly sounds like he did), it's very possible to fire it by accident.
Right, they have to be mishandled, uncleaned, and not properly stored, so like they said, guns generally don't just "go off".
Some guns are just built like shit.
Laws have been passed to shield gun manufacturers from liability for faulty products.
Still, this case sounded like premeditated murder more than anything else. And that Texas grand jury, and prosecutor, were fine with it because the daughter hated Trump.
I don't see any evidence to suggest the guy was maintaining any of his kit properly.
They can and do when mishandled, which is why gun safety exists to begin with.
"Don't point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot" is Rule 1 for a reason. And if he was playing with the gun like a toy, it's very easy to believe he fumbled it. The stories of children setting off guns by playing with them are more numerous than you can count.
Not sure what the downvoters are thinking. I was reading through this whole argument about whether or not guns can just "go off" and kept thinking a) obviously there are cases where people fire a gun they are handling unintentionally, whether because they are idiots or the gun malfunctioned. But b) it doesn't make a difference in whether he was negligent because he already was when he pointed it at her in the first place. That's all that should have been needed to get a negligent manslaughter charge to stick, accidental discharge or not, it hit her because he was pointing the gun at her.
Though I don't buy it was accidental at all, given the circumstances. Heated argument about Trump just before she's supposed to leave but first he needs to show her his gun that just happens to accidentally fire while he was pointing it at her?
Jury nullification goes both ways and that grand jury just condoned the murder of someone who opposed Trump.
Its mostly semantics. Dude is saying guns don't just go off because of X, Y, and Z. And people are pointing out that X, Y, and Z are the result of negligence.
People neglecting gun safety is the cause. The gun goes off because of the negligence.
I interpreted their comments as saying the guy was negligent on multiple levels. Like saying he probably was neglecting maintenance to the point where the gun can randomly fire doesn't sound like a defense of the guy to me but more like the gun going off could have occurred because he triggered it himself directly or because he didn't keep it in a condition to prevent it from being triggered indirectly.
Though that last paragraph is the most important part IMO, because regardless of how the gun went off, if he had been following gun safety rules, it should have just resulted in an embarrassing hole in his floor, not the death of the person he was "showing the gun to".