Oh, It Was In Somebody's Hand?

Then it did not go off:

WENDELL -- A 15-year-old Wendell boy died Friday night after a gun went off and killed him, according to the Johnston County Sheriff.

The boy, who name was not released, was at the home of Robert Furey at 200 David Road.

So there the gun was, lying on a table, and Hey Presto! It goes off. Is that how it happened?

Furey was showing the boy a gun when it went off and killed him at 9:30 p.m., said Tammy Amaon, spokeswoman for the sheriff.

Ah, now it becomes clear. So, there you are, showing a boy a loaded gun (Rule 1: A Gun Is Always Loaded), and the muzzle just happens to be pointing at the boy (Rule 2: Never Let the Muzzle Cover Anything You Are Not Willing To Destroy), and Hey Presto! It goes off? Is that how it happened? Damned unsafe gun, if you ask me. Too unsafe to leave loaded.

But...but...the gun hadn't gone off before, had it? When lying on a table? Stored wherever you store it? No?

Only when you were handling it? So maybe it's possible that your finger was on the trigger (Rule 3: Keep Your Finger Off the Trigger Until Your Sights Are On the Target)?

Furey was charged with voluntary manslaughter and is in the Johnston County Jail with no bond.

According to the Department of Public Safety, Robert Keith Furey has three convictions for driving while impaired, the most recent in October 2011.

Those three DWI convictions were all misdemeanors, according to the NC Offender Search. Two of them came back in 1988, when Furey was around 35; the newest one was just last year. So he was a drunk lacking judgement and self-control in his thirties, cleaned up his act for 20+ years, and just recently relapsed into bad habits.

So he didn't do anything heinously bad that would have prevented him from purchasing a firearm; he was just stupid and forgot safe gun handling practices, if he ever learned them to begin with. Maybe we should ask that a prospective gun owner take a class before being allowed to purchase a gun? An hour's class on gun safety, to include safe handling practices and storage, the passing of the class a pre-requisite to purchasing a firearm? What do you folks think?