TMI Friday: Self Inflicted Gunshot edition

In some ways, I envy the USA. Every citizen has a right to arm themselves with an array of high power assault weapons. Every citizen has the right to feel the power of spraying each other with burning metal death. But there are some downsides. There are some people who just shouldn't be given the right to bear arms. I'm not saying that they can't play a role in an organised militia, but that role should involve paperwork, or handing out cupcakes. Activities where they can't hurt themselves or others.

In today's TMI Friday, we'll be looking at those poor souls who lost their lives to self inflicted gunshot wounds.

Wrong way round

A would-be burglar was found in front of a house, dead from a shotgun wound to the stomach. The police didn't find the shotgun, until they looked at the house. The window on the door had been broken in, and just inside was the shotgun. Based on the available evidence, the police deduced that the robber had attempted to use the blunt end of the shotgun to break the door window. However, when the burglar smashed the window, he accidentally discharged the shotgun into his own belly. The shotgun blast may have propelled it through the window into the house, leaving the burglar to collapse in front of it.

That damn mouse.

The scene of the crime was gruesome. A small mouse had been bludgeoned to death with a blunt object. And next to it, the dead body of an eighty year old man beside a shotgun. It appears that the old man was playing a deadly game of man vs mouse, in which his primary weapon was a shotgun. He managed to corner the mouse and beat it with the stock of his shotgun, until the weapon discharged into his abdomen.

Below the belt

When you get a gun, I'm sure the first thing you want to do is show it off. Remind your friends that you now hold the power of life and death within your palms. Feel free to strut around, playfully cocking the loaded weapon, before stuffing the primed weapon into your waistband, aimed not an insignificant distance from your junk, and jump onto the sofa where it can accidentally discharge into your left thigh, causing you to bleed to death before the paramedics could arrive and laugh at your corpse.

It's a Trap

In this next tale, we deal with a pot grower, who was getting sick of being robbed. When someone steals your illegal drugs, you can't exactly report them to the police. So you need to use other means to deter potential thieves. Taking inspiration from movies such as Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, he decided to set up a lethal booby trap. He set up a shotgun, loaded and aimed at his back door, such that it would discharge the moment anyone came through it. It was an ingenious plan. The pot grower then left to purchase a motion detector. After purchasing the motion detector, he excitedly returned home. 

Through the back door.

Chung Y.A. (2003). Self-inflicted accidental gunshot wounds., Legal medicine, PMID: 12935602