Mother Mistakes Small Gun for Cigarette Lighter, Daughter Wounded

[onehandle]

Source: AP

A 12-year-old girl was wounded by a ricocheting bullet Sunday evening in Banning, when her mother fired a tiny pistol she mistook for a cigarette lighter, police said.

Banning police described the incident as an accidental shooting. A photo of the revolver was released Wednesday by Banning police.

A "juvenile gunshot victim" was reported about 5:40 p.m. Sunday and officers responded to the emergency room at San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital, Banning police said in a statement.

Rachel Avila, 30, told police she and her 12-year-old daughter, both of Banning, were talking with friends in front of their mobile home in the 100 block of North Phillips Avenue when Avila found what she thought was a novelty cigarette lighter, police said.


Read more: http://banning-beaumont.patch.com/articles/mother-mistakes-small-gun-for-lighter-daughter-wounded#photo-7165341

[UpInArms]

1. Oopsie! Lucky she gets a do-over on that

n/t

[Devil_Fish]

2. Cue the anti-guners in 3....2.....

[virgogal]

3. Smoking kills.

[Muskypundit]

5. L. O. L.

[Wilms]

4. See. It ain't just Florida. n/t

[Auntie Bush]

6. That looksvery much like a gun to me!

The father? is also guilty/responsible because he didn't make the mother aware of it's use...and for leaving around a loaded gun. I hope he gets sentencing severely. A good example for other careless thoughtless gun owners.

[one-eyed fat man]

13. Makes you wonder

Just what was she smoking when she did that?

[gejohnston]

14. did we read the same article?

What it looks like is the lady found what she thought was a lighter on the ground. Found out the hard way that it was not. The father is not mentioned, may not be in the picture or around at the time. Even if he was, he may have thought the same thing. Like I said below, definitely not a gun person if she could not tell the difference.
Either way, mom was an accidental (as in not knowing she owned a gun instead of a cool lighter) gun owner for a short time, but not thoughtless or careless. So, no she should not face charges of any kind.
The guy that dropped it on the other hand, is a different issue.

[safeinOhio]

7. Murphy's law

goes double for guns. What ever can go wrong, will.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. Chief Inspector Dreyfus?

http://youtu.be/LEcsgbwBFRs

(See 3:35)

[gejohnston]

9. Seen a lot of those in gun shops

seen a few of the cigarette lighters that look like guns. I can tell the difference. I get two things from this:
Mom is not a gun person
The owner that dropped it is going "oh shit"

Glad the kid is OK.

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. The owner that dropped it should be going "I'm sorry, your honor."...

...at their sentencing.

[Euromutt]

19. I consider myself a gun person and I effing hate those NAA revolvers

They look way too much like something that looks like but is not an actual firearm and I don't blame a non-gun enthusiast who can't tell the two apart. By that token, I hate them almost as much I hate any "novelty" item made to resemble a gun. I don't think these mistakes happen very often, but they'd happen even less if guns looked like guns and everything else didn't.

[one-eyed fat man]

11. Odd writing, or strange statements?

"The lighter resembled a miniature firearm and it was lying on the ground, Avila told police.

Avila picked it up and tried to light it by pulling the trigger, police said.

The first time Avila pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The second time she pulled the trigger, a .22-caliber bullet was fired, police said."

What lighter resembled a miniature firearm?

A miniature firearm was on the ground and she mistook it for a lighter would be closer to the truth. It was never a lighter that somehow turned into a gun after she started messing with it.

The second thing is that is a single action revolver. The hammer must be cocked for it to fire. Pulling the trigger all day long will do nothing unless the hammer is cocked first.

[gejohnston]

12. Makes you wonder if they

still teach composition in Jr High English classes.

[iverglas]

15. if she had played with toy pistols when she was a kid

... as I did ...

The second thing is that is a single action revolver. The hammer must be cocked for it to fire. Pulling the trigger all day long will do nothing unless the hammer is cocked first.

... she might have known what that hammer thing on a gun was for and taken it for the safety device on the lighter.

Not sure about where that happened, but up here lighters started having mandatory safety features some years ago. I amused the little neighbourhood girls for hours by letting them try to light mine with no success, then waving it behind my back, holding it aloft and lighting it. They were desperate to know the secret.

What I was doing behind my back was "cocking" it with my thumb.

I've never seen a gun-shaped cigarette lighter in real life, but it strikes me that they might have the safety device made in the form of the hammer. ;)

[gejohnston]

17. all of the gun lighters I have seen

look like small autos, like a .25. You pull the trigger and the flame either comes out the barrel. Lighters here do not need safeties.

[one-eyed fat man]

23. Gun lighters

Are generally pretty cheesy looking, and made from stamped sheet metal. This one even has a flashlight. The large button on the side allows it to open to change the battery. The smaller sliding button on the grip is the "safety." The knurled wheel adjusts the flame height. Service ports for butane and flint replacement are under the screws in the base of the grip.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_abaJ0xbRju4/Sw0gkzUb3EI/AAAAAAAACFw/v2PfW9-9Uqc/s400/James+Bond+Gun+Lighter,+Flashlight-1a.jpg

This is what it looks like lit.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_abaJ0xbRju4/Sw0giB_Sv8I/AAAAAAAACFo/gsZzbkT4I_M/s400/James+Bond+Gun+Lighter,+Flashlight-1b.jpg

I don't smoke but one of my kids thought I should have that 40 years ago.

[spin]

16. My daughter carries one of those ...

She carries it as a back up gun and calls it her "Get away from me" gun.

She also carries a .22 magnum S&W 351PD revolver and occasionally a .38 S&W Model 64 revolver.


S&W 351PD


S&W Model 64

[gejohnston]

18. the .22lr or mag?

[spin]

20. 22 mag. (n/t)

[Atypical Liberal]

21. I'm not a fan of these "toy" firearms.

I've seen these things before, and can't imagine why anyone would choose one for a firearm. They are underpowered and not much smaller than something like a Ruger LCP.

I could easily see how someone would mistake one of these for a novelty item.

[gravity556]

25. An NAA in .22mag is better than harsh words.

I used to carry one in my coin pocket. Only way to accurately use it was to stuff it up the attacker's nose and then pull the trigger.

[Remmah2]

22. This is an obscure and bizzare story.

It's about as isolated as one can get. Why is it that second amendment restrictionist try to paint all firearms owners with a single brush?

[gravity556]

24. You can't pull the trigger on a NAA mini-revolver twice.

Not without cocking it, since it's a single action revolver, and if it's loaded and you're looking at the barrel hoping for a flame for your cig, you'd also be able to see the rounds in the cylinder. It's a pity that the daughter had to pay for the fact that her mom is too fucking stupid to discern the difference between a lighter and a fucking gun. You know what would seriously put a dent in events like this? Require individuals who are too stupid to function in normal society to have a 24 hour minder. Pay the minders 7 bucks and hour and you could create millions in jobs, plus save billions in healthcare dollars, simply because Cleatus's minder is there to stop him from sticking his hand under that running lawn mower. Gomer would be saved those horrific burns if his minder stopped him from checking to see how much gas is in the tank with a fucking lighter.

Foolproof plan. Generates income and saves money on the back end.