Horror as two men and a woman shot at South Dakota Wild West-style shootout

[jpak]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005239/Three-tourists-shot-South-Dakota-Wild-West-shootout.html

Three tourists have been shot while watching a staged Wild West-style shootout.

Carrol Knutson, 65, from Birchwood, Minnesota, Jose Pruneda, 52, from Alliance, Nebraska, and John Ellis, 48, from South Connellsville Pennsylvania were all injured in the gun show in Hill City, South Dakota, according to Pennington County Sheriff's office.

It is thought Mr Ellis was shot twice in the incident.

All three were taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital last night. This morning Mr Prundeda had been discharged while the other two were in a 'fair' condition following surgery, officials said.

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You mean they don't use blanks in those shoot 'em ups?

stupid

[chrisa]

1. What the fuck were they doing?

Has to be asked.

[Zoeisright]

2. You can't pull a bullet back into a gun.

Just like you can't put spilled nuclear fuel back into a containment vessel. There are consequences to fooling around with both things.

[rl6214]

6. Did you read the story?

From the story:

"no bullets or fragments recovered."

Blanks

[TheWraith]

25. Yep. Blanks are dangerous things at close range.

The expanding column of hot gas coming out of the barrel can still hurt a person, despite there being no bullet, even smashing bone and tearing skin. On packages of rifle blanks they warn you not to use them within 20 feet of a person due to potential danger.

This sounds like a case where there was an insufficient minimum distance between the crowd and the performers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. 13 different news sources to choose from, and you choose the Daily Mail

It makes more work for us, because the Daily Mail is so unreliable that no-one can take its word for anything.

Please, everyone, whatever the news story, use another source if it's available. The Mail is right wing, and unreliable. More unreliable than Fox News, really.

The story from respectable sources:

http://www.kcautv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14933543 (AP)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/18/us-shootout-idUSTRE75H21V20110618

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13824907

[DrDan]

8. just read your 3 sources as well as the original - did not see any differences

did you?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. No; the point is that the Mail is a right wing tabloid

and whenever you see a link to it, you should check the story with a real source. It's not that the Mail always lies; it's just that they frequently do.

It saddens me that anyone is looking at the Mail to find news stories. Think of a cross between Fox News and World Net Daily, and you've got it.

[Euromutt]

14. It's not called the "Daily Fail" for nothing

The Mail is, in a sense, worse than a tabloid, because it has the pretense of not being one, despite being different only in not having a page 3 girl. Much like the Sun (and much of the British news media, honestly), the Mail is not above exaggerating or outright fabricating details to "sex up" a story.

You can go with a report from a British daily, as long as you bear in mind that they're all biased, and they all "pander to their readers' prejudices" (as Sir Humphrey Appleby put it) and adjust your level of credulity accordingly.

[petronius]

21. To be fair the the OP, he's not actually looking at the Mail for news

What he's doing is google-searching "guns" to find a bunch of random stories about gun-related accidents or tragedies that he can dump into the forum. Where they actually come from is irrelevant to him, as far as anyone can tell... :shrug:

[rl6214]

22. "It saddens me that anyone is looking at the Mail to find news stories"

But if that's what you find to fit your anti-gun agenda when you type guns into google, you will use whatever you can get.

[Euromutt]

17. Note the difference in headlines between the sources, by the way

The Daily Fail: "Horror as two men and a woman shot at South Dakota Wild West-style shootout"
The BBC: "South Dakota Wild West-style shootout leaves three hurt"
Local ABC affiliate KCAU: "Tourists injured during simulated SD shootout"

The BBC line is slightly better than the Mail one, in that it least doesn't create the false impression the shootings were fatal. The KCAU line, however, makes it clear from the outset that this wasn't an actual shootout.

[Poll_Blind]

4. A person who alleged to have been shot in the head in 2002 said...

...that their injury had been caused by "an overpacked blank". While there are an enormous number of firearms-related deaths in this country, and while mistakes or unprofessional handling of prop firearms has lead to at least 5-6 people that I'm aware of (on movie or TV sets), even something like this where the ammunition is a "blank" can be deadly.

Even a thin paraffin "cap" on the end of a bullet can still cause injury. They come out with such force that they are often used to break the stage glass between the shooter and the shootee in a "catch the bullet" illusion in magic.

As a person who witnessed a sloppily-executed "re-enactment" of firearms as a child it is unconscionable that anyone would fire guns like that (with blanks or whatever) so close to people. Dangerous in the extreme.

PB

[Euromutt]

15. True, blanks can be dicey even in the best of circumstances

When I was doing through basic training in the Dutch army, back in 1993, we were cautioned in the strongest terms against firing blanks at others at short ranges, because even with factory-produced blank rounds and a blank firing adaptor mostly blocking the muzzles of our rifles, it was not unheard of for hot power residue to come flying out (especially if there was oil left in the chamber or barrel from cleaning), which could result in facial or eye injury if it happened to strike the target there.

In a display like this, you're probably going to want to keep at least 30 feet between the participants, and you should never fire in the direction of an onlooker. That's just rule #2: "Never allow the muzzle to cover something you're not willing to destroy."

[rl6214]

5. WOW, you're really reaching now. Slow day in the basement?

"You mean they don't use blanks in those shoot 'em ups?"

Do you even read the articles before you start spamming this forum? From the story:

" victims showed signs of wounds consistent with gunshots, but there were no bullets or fragments recovered."

[DrDan]

9. why is that a reach? Didn't they still point those weapons at the tourists?

[Euromutt]

16. It's a reach because there's no evidence live rounds were used

Which would be why rl6214's post pertained entirely to jpak's insinuation that somebody did negligently load live rounds into one or more of the weapons.

[DrDan]

27. ok - I get it - pointing a weapon at a bystander is ok if blanks are being used

got it

[eqfan592]

29. Care to point out...

...where anybody other than yourself said any such thing?

[DrDan]

30. "It's a reach because there's no evidence live rounds were used"

no concern (nor condemnation) that the guns were pointed at the on-lookers, is there?

[petronius]

32. I see multiple posts from before this one condemning what looks like the irresponsible

use of firearms (even with blanks). Including one from the poster you're responding to... :shrug:

[Euromutt]

34. I refer you to post #19 in this thread

Again, for the deliberately obtuse, rl6214's "reaching" statement was directed at jpak's closing remark in the OP:

You mean they don't use blanks in those shoot 'em ups?

The fact that blank rounds aren't quite as safe as the re-enactors evidently (and rather negligently) thought doesn't alter the fact that they were using blank rounds.

[DrDan]

7. "dress up in Wild West clothing and simulate the shootout while onlookers crowd round"

that is some pretty effective simulation if you ask me.

Even if it was a simulation with blanks, do the gun owners here support "shooting" at on-lookers?

[Euromutt]

19. Why ask us?

It doesn't strike me as a particularly effective simulation, by the way; in a real gun battle, you'd expect bystanders to have the good sense to seek cover, not "crowd round."

And no, I for one do not support discharging blank rounds in even the general direction of bystanders at re-enactments, whether it's English Civil War, American Civil War, "Wild West" or anything involving blank-firing guns. In fact, as a gun owner, I'm more than a little leery of anything that involves aiming an actual firearm (capable of chambering and firing live rounds) at another human being, but presumably the participants themselves know the risks and have some measure of control over them (e.g. they're able to check each others' guns to ensure no live rounds are loaded).

[DrDan]

31. gotcha - the victims are to blame

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DrDan]

36. "you'd expect bystanders to have the good sense to seek cover,"

you did write that, did you not?

[eqfan592]

37. Lol, way to take that completely out of context. Nt

[DrDan]

38. how so?

[Euromutt]

39. Yes, right after the words "in a real gun battle" (which this was not)

And that came immediately after an observation about the realism of the simulation. Note also my choice of punctuation: a semi-colon and a comma, rather than a period, let alone a paragraph break. I find it hard to believe you managed to get past grade school, let alone acquire a Ph.D. without being able to wrap your head around the idea that a single thought may be expressed in multiple clauses or sentences, and that you can't home in on one clause as if it were independent of the whole.

[safeinOhio]

10. Murhpy's law

applies double to handguns. If anything can go wrong, it will.

[DonP]

11. Give them the Brandon Lee and John Eric Hexxum award

Both killed themselves "accidentally" by playing with a gun loaded with "blanks".

[MicaelS]

26. Brandon Lee most assuredly did NOT kill himself

The death was ruled to be accidental, and while attributed to negligence on the part of the film crew, no criminal charges were filed. Linda Lee Cadwell, Lee's mother, sued and settled out of court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradon_Lee

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/brandonlee.asp

On March 31, 1993, while making The Crow, the crew filmed a scene in which his character walks into his apartment and discovers his fiancée being beaten and raped by thugs. Actor Michael Massee, who played one of the film's villains, was supposed to fire a pistol at Lee as he walked onto the scene.

Because the movie's second unit was running behind schedule, they decided to make dummy cartridges (cartridges that outwardly appear to be functional but contain no propellant or primers) from real cartridges by pulling out the bullets, dumping out the propellant and reinserting the bullets. However, the team neglected to remove the primers, which, if fired, could still produce just enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel (a squib load). At some point prior to the fatal scene, the live primer in one of the improperly constructed dummy rounds was discharged by an unknown person while in the pistol, leaving the bullet stuck in the barrel.

This malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was later reloaded with blank cartridges and used in the scene in which Lee was shot. When the first blank cartridge was fired, the stuck bullet was propelled out of the barrel and struck Lee in the abdomen, lodging in his spine. He fell down instantly, and director Alex Proyas shouted "Cut!". When Lee did not get up, the cast and crew rushed to him and found that he was wounded. He was immediately rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington by ambulance, but following a six-hour operation to remove the bullet, Lee was pronounced dead at 1:04 pm on March 31, 1993. He was 28 years old.

[ileus]

13. Time to ban tourist attractions.

[newfie11]

18. this has been done every summer for many many years with no problems

It will be interesting to see what the rest of the story is. When we worked in Rapid and lived near Custer we had to drive through Hill City twice a day. In the summer (before the bypass was made) we would have to wait around 30 minutes every day for the shoot out to end and the road to open.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. I went to this when I was 6 years old.

[gejohnston]

20. for balance

Around 3 a.m., a woman driving her one-year-old son pulled her vehicle into the garage of her home in Rancho Cordova, Calif. As the woman exited the car, two men who had followed her into the garage attacked, striking her in the head. Hearing the commotion, a male resident of the home retrieved a gun and came to the aid of the woman, exchanging gunfire with the attackers as the woman regained her bearings, got back in her car and escaped the violence by smashing through the garage door. As a result of the gun fight, the resident received a minor wound to his hip; one criminal was wounded severely, and the other was struck in the leg but fled the scene. Police captured both attackers a short time later.

Sacramento County Sherriff’s Department Spokesman Jason Ramos was supportive of the armed citizen’s actions, stating, “He defended his property and his woman and his kid… I guess you could describe it as heroic action. Things could be a lot worse for her and for the resident.” (The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, Calif. 06/17/11)

[krispos42]

23. Hill City, South Dakota... the Black Hills. Hell, I probably drove through there at least once

I checked the Rapid City Journal. Here's what I got:

Hill City shootout victims in fair condition

Home / News
Hill City shootout victims in fair condition

David Montgomery Journal staff | Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2011 11:32 am

The three people injured in Friday night's cowboy shootout gone wrong were all in fair or better condition Saturday morning.

The Pennington County Sheriff's Office identified the victims as Jose Pruneda of Alliance, Neb., Carrol Knutson of Birchwood, Minn., and John Ellis of South Connellsville, Penn. All three were taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital Friday night after being injured at a Hill City cowboy shootout they were observing.

As of around 10 a.m. Saturday morning, Pruneda has been discharged from the hospital. Knutson and Ellis were both in "fair" condition, which means conscious with stable vital signs.

Lt. Marty Graves of the sheriff's office said the investigation into the incident is still ongoing. Law enforcement personnel have confiscated the weapons involved in the shootout and are interviewing witnesses.

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http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_23bca1a4-99d1-11e0-aef4-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story

[GreenStormCloud]

28. They are supposed to use simulated guns in those things.

For movies and such there are special plastic guns that look real but can't fire a real cartridge and take special blanks. Using those guns makes accidents like this impossible to happen. They should have known their business and used the right equipment.

[RamboLiberal]

33. Some horror! HAH

"A lot of people -- just kind of in shock and disbelief," Raderschadt said. "I didn't see a lot of ... anxious behavior, no panic. Just a lot of people wondering what was going on."

Shelley Bail, a waitress at the Hill City Cafe near the scene, said many people reacted not by running away but by running toward the incident to see what had happened.

Other witnesses laughed it off.

"People were kind of joking about it," Moni Matush, owner of the nearby Alpine Inn restaurant, said of witnesses who came into her restaurant after the incident. "I was almost sort of offended, thinking, ‘I think this is serious.' People were kind of giggling about it, saying, ‘They got shot at an Old West shootout in South Dakota.'"

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_33ffaf52-9a3a-11e0-a0d2-001cc4c03286.html

Dumb accident yes - deadly probably not but yes it's better not to have happened at all. Bet it never will again with these reenactors. Probably just a wad blown out by an overcharge of powder.