Kid accidentaly kills himself trying to prove he was "manly"

[Damen]

I love guns, as most everyone here knows. From a young age, my dad always taught me to respect them and did everything he could to dispel the mystique of them while I was a kid. I grew up with frame of mind that all guns are loaded until you see for yourself and when handling them I will check multiple times to make sure I didn't load it and space out. When they are loaded, I treat them like vials of nitroglycerine. Now, between my dad and myself, there are seven firearms in this house and they are respected and known not to be toys.

Yeah, this was a Darwin Award.

[Saturn500]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtfE6IAcu8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtfE6IAcu8</a>

Persona 3, you're doing it wrong.

I was resisting the urge to make that reference.

[gyeonghwa]

I'm neutral on the issue of gun ownership itself. But I think it's really stupid if you use guns (especially recklessly) to compensate for your masculinity. I think the same of people who drive needlessly large trucks dangerously in order to compensate for their masculinity.

[Atavist]

When your "manliness" is so important that you do something so stupid as not to check if a gun is loaded, I can't feel any pity or sorrow fo rthe results.
The only people I do feel sorry for are the idiot's family.

[The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist]

I really dislike this perception that manliness equals reckless endangerment and disregard. It's something that our culture needs to change. I don't view that as masculine at all. My masculinity has nothing to do with putting myself or others in danger.

Seriously.

And speaking of putting others in danger in addition to yourself, it wasn't just his own life this guy was playing with -- he also endangered his siblings, who could have been hit if he'd flinched back when he pulled the trigger, or accidentally set it off while playing around with it.

Plus, his display of "manliness" traumatized everyone who witnessed the outcome. I can't even begin to imagine the hell his siblings and the person on the other end of the webcam chat are going through, after seeing something like that. How do you get that image out of your head?

[Witchyjoshy]

What kind of idiot leaves a loaded gun laying around, anyways?

[ironbite]

This idiot's older brother.

Ironbite-Darwin award winner.

[Random Gal]

I'm neutral on the issue of gun ownership itself. But I think it's really stupid if you use guns (especially recklessly) to compensate for your masculinity. I think the same of people who drive needlessly large trucks dangerously in order to compensate for their masculinity.

I recall discussions during D&D sessions about calling an overly-large sword "The Compensator."

[Osama bin Bambi]

This definitely needs to be submitted to the Darwin Awards site. It's right up there with the "I wanted to see how close I could get my head to the train" guy.

I think the person has to be an adult to qualify for a Darwin Award, so this probably qualifies.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtfE6IAcu8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtfE6IAcu8</a>

Persona 3, you're doing it wrong.

Aaaand.... KZN02 wins the thread!

[Stormwarden]

Always treat a gun, loaded or unloaded, unless you yourself unloaded it, and even then, CHECK ANYWAY. I vote Darwin Award as well. This is the sort of cautionary tale that needs to be spread.

[Thejebusfire]

Too bad he didn't have a rabbit nailed to his wall to talk him out of it.

[Sylvana]

This definitely needs to be submitted to the Darwin Awards site. It's right up there with the "I wanted to see how close I could get my head to the train" guy.

I think the person has to be an adult to qualify for a Darwin Award, so this probably qualifies.

The kid was 18, so I assume that is well within the realm of being considered an adult.
I also agree this is Darwin award material. Of all the possible ways to try and display ones manliness holding a gun to your head, loaded or not, is not one of them. All it displays is stupidity.

With all that said though, I have a serious issue with the gun culture in America. Too many people have casual access to firearms. The belief that all Americans need guns to protect themselves is what causes things like the unnecessary stand your ground killings, not to mention accidents like this. Guns should be a carefully controlled luxury not a constitutional right.

[Osama bin Bambi]

I think that there should be a system instituted in the US for gun licenses that is similar to the one already in place for driver's licenses. Guns and cars are two things that can be used responsibly or irresponsibly, depending on the aptitude of the person using them. We require driving licenses and courses before letting people drive so that they know how to avoid hurting themselves and others, and also what laws they have to obey. The same should hold true for guns (except that guns, unlike cars, are absolutely off-limits to minors).

[Stormwarden]

Wykked: We do have those. They're primarily concealed-carry permits, and the laws vary state-by-state. Some firearms don't have permits required (usually long arms, but the laws also vary on that).

[Star Cluster]

This incident reminded me of what happened to the kid who's dad lived across the street from us a few years ago.  His mom and dad were divorced and he split time living with the two of them. He was the same age as my son and they were really good friends during high school.  He was an excellent athlete and played multiple sports.

However, he started running with the "wrong" crowd, as the old story goes, and it wasn't long before he got into drugs.  He started getting into so much trouble that he was kicked off the wrestling team and ended up going to a different school so he could wrestle there.

After he graduated from high school, he really went off the deep end.  Within 2 years of graduating, he was dead.  It's unsure exactly what happened leading up to his death due to conflicting stories told by those that were present, but the gist of it is that all present were stoned out of their minds and he got into a big way of talking about how tough he was and that he was invincible.  One thing lead to another, and this is where the stories diverge, he either put a gun in his mouth to "prove" how tough he was or he challenged someone else to shoot him.  Needless to say, it didn't have the outcome he had envisioned in his drug induced state of mind.  What was so bad is that, according to what we understand, he lay there dead for several hours before anyone realized he was dead and had the where-with-all to call anyone.

His dad has since moved so I don't know if they ever really resolved exactly what happened.  I do know that no one was ever charged with killing him, so I guess that means it was pretty much ruled a suicide.