Man cleans gun, kills girl 1 mile away

[TriggerMan]

Sheriff: Ohio man cleaning gun killed Amish girl

US Video
Advertisement

http://va.px.invitemedia.com/rubicon_imp?returnType=image&key=AdImp&cost=2.182222&creativeID=152629&message=eJwVjDkOgDAMBP.ydSJlbcc5fgOhRHRUiL9jutFoZx 8QE4c3W1223PYysrXV874oeStjHe4uVCKhYg5qTZCABMdklVI9 QX_TKbTgOLSuLFEY5nWfZ0j9B.L6frrhGPQ-&managed=false http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-e4m3Yko6bFYVc.gif?labels=NewsAndReference


http://oascentral.hosted.ap.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_lx.ads/hosted.ap.org/bottom/APress/winstar_pop_2011/Tracking_WinStar/1? http://te.ap.org/tte/blank.gif?0.575997551497527&snippet_version=1.3.a&referrer=http%3A//www.drudgereport.com/&page=http%3A//hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BUGGY_SHOOTING_DEATH%3FSITE%3DAP%26SECTION%3DHO ME%26TEMPLATE%3DDEFAULT%26CTIME%3D2011-12-20-17-50-11&timezone=300&var_SECTION=NATIONAL Buy AP Photo Reprintshttp://hosted.ap.org/icons/spacer.gifhttp://hosted.ap.org/specials/images/ap_photo_promo.jpg (http://www.apimages.com/fronts/Default.aspx?sh=-6543)
http://analytics.apnewsregistry.com/analytics/v2/image.svc/AP/RWS/hosted.ap.org/MAI/V3558-2011-12-20T1945Z/E/prod/AT/A FREDERICKSBURG, Ohio (AP) -- A man cleaning his muzzle-loading rifle shot the gun into the air, accidentally killing a 15-year-old Amish girl driving a horse-drawn buggy more than a mile away, a sheriff said Tuesday.
Rachel Yoder was shot in the head Thursday night while traveling to her home in Wayne County, between Columbus and Akron. She had attended a Christmas party for employees, most of them under 18 years old, at an Amish produce farm and was riding home alone when she was shot, Wayne County sheriff's Capt. Douglas Hunter said.

[muggsy]

The idiot who pulled the trigger should be charged with reckless homicide. May God rest her soul.

[hss.strat]

Jeez... I'm not a big muzzle loader guy but I have handled them a few times. Doesn't seem real easy to accidentally shoot one into the air though. I imagine he thought it was easier to fire a round in the air then clean the bullet and powder out.

I know it's going to start a flame war about civil rights but I still think people should have to pass a safety test before getting a gun. Don't know how you'd do it and still respect the 2nd amendment, but stuff like this shouldn't happen. Accidents do happen, but negligence with a deadly weapon shouldn't. $0.02.

[wyntrout]

I'm just guestimating, but let's say the terminal speed might be 120 mph, which is about 176 feet per second... pretty danged fast for a lead ball weighing several hundred grains. Deadly... I would think so if it struck you in the head.

It makes me sick to watch idiots shooting their weapons into the air... the bullets come down with too often fatal results... to the celebrants, too, when armed aircraft perceive that they are being fired upon!:eek:

I decided a long time ago that if I needed to fire a "warning shot"... illegal here... but I was thinking about a puma or bear or something that I might want to try to scare away and call the authorities... rather than chance wounding or even killing an endangered animal. Anyhow, I would fire into the ground... and not a glancing shot to ricochet, either.

Wynn:)

[LMT42]

I know it's going to start a flame war about civil rights but I still think people should have to pass a safety test before getting a gun. Don't know how you'd do it and still respect the 2nd amendment, but stuff like this shouldn't happen. Accidents do happen, but negligence with a deadly weapon shouldn't. $0.02.

Dangerous thinking, we need less government not more. We have laws to punish people for negligent offenses. You can't legislate against stupidity.

I don't know why charges haven't been filed against this guy. Last time I checked, it's a pretty tedious procedure to get a muzzle-loader ready to fire. It's not like he was cleaning a Glock and had an AD. I fail to see how this could have been an accident.

[superchief]

these kinds of incidents make all gun owners look stupid. We are just now turning around stupid laws in some of the serious "anti" cities and states. The main threat to our rights is that the anti-gun crowd will turn gun rights into a safety issue. I think they'll say, "you have a right to own a gun, but it's just not safe -- do it for the children!"

[jocko]

wonder how many die over in those damn foreign countries where u see on TV all the time the idiots shooting AK's in the air--repeately. WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

a shame about this negligent accident. I doubt if charges will be filed

[jocko]

these kinds of incidents make all gun owners look stupid. We are just now turning around stupid laws in some of the serious "anti" cities and states. The main threat to our rights is that the anti-gun crowd will turn gun rights into a safety issue. I think they'll say, "you have a right to own a gun, but it's just not safe -- do it for the children!"

RIGHT BUT IF ANYTHING the anti gun people would be hard pressed to tag the amish as careless gun fanatics. Also had this been an AK assault type rifle then there would be more wood for the fire. In this case a muzzloader is sure not considered a tactical assault weapon.(what ever in the hell that definition is)_

Sure a bunch of rednecks sitting around a camp fire drinking beer and shooting off their muzzle loaders, this would be a whole new scenario for the anti gun people to go after us Probably the news releae wold be smething like this" Beer drinking men shooting guns in the air kill a young amish girl a mile away".

[jeffe007]

Myth haters proved on a show that a shOt fired directly straight up will not have the velocity to kill you or anyone else. Now if one fired it laterally or in an arc that's a whole nother story and yes it can and will kill you. Still, what r the odds?

[jeffe007]

Wow the auto censor censored the word S-H-O-T

[dshideler]

Although I don't shoot it a lot ( pain In the rump to clean) I do own and hunt with a muzzle loader. I understand at the end of the day after hunting shooting your gun in a SAFE direction to clear the bore. What's scary is ( and you would be surprised how often this happens) the thought that he loaded his gun LAST muzzleloader season and forgot to unload it before putting it away, he gets it out this year to get it ready for the season finds its loaded and walks out on the back porch and fires it off. I don't know how many guys I've talked to who have bought a muzzleloader off of someone only to take it home and discover it was loaded. I even know one guy who did this and then proceeded to load it again w/o making sure it wasn't already loaded. Now it's double loaded.

[jocko]

u just can't beat STUPIDITY!!!

[muggsy]

wonder how many die over in those damn foreign countries where u see on TV all the time the idiots shooting AK's in the air--repeately. WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

a shame about this negligent accident. I doubt if charges will be filed

What goes up must come down, but not at muzzle velocity. The idiot must have held the gun at a 45 degree angle to kill someone a mile and a half away.

[jeepster09]

wonder how many die over in those damn foreign countries where u see on TV all the time the idiots shooting AK's in the air--repeately. WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

a shame about this negligent accident. I doubt if charges will be filed


I encourage that over in those areas......it's called thinning the herd.:D

[jeepster09]

u just can't beat STUPIDITY!!!

You also can't fix stupid.....

[WMD]

Myth haters proved on a show that a shOt fired directly straight up will not have the velocity to kill you or anyone else. Now if one fired it laterally or in an arc that's a whole nother story and yes it can and will kill you. Still, what r the odds?

Yes, I heard the same thing. Sooooo...... one begins to wonder what really happened. I have shot a lot of black powder in both cap and flintlocks. Although, they come out of the bore with serious energy on average 1800 to 1900 fps), they lose their velocity (and energy) fairly quick. Black powder guns are not long range guns (Except in Hollywood). :D Even Quigley's gun would not do 1 mile! And if it did, it would not have the energy to kill anything.

I am really thinking there is something wrong with the story or, there is more to the story then what we are being told.

[WMD]

One other thought.... Military snipers kill people 1 mile away. You may have seen video clips on the internet. Those folks are not using 308's which is the traditional sniper caliber. There is a reason for that. A 308 is not going to do it. A 50 caliber will do it however. And AP reported a black powder gun kill at a mile away? Just doesn't sound right to me....:confused::)

[jocko]

I watched a news report today (mind u now it was a news report and they can fokk up a wet dream) but they even stated it was 1.5 mles away. No damn way a muzzlle loader can shoot that far. I thought I had har it was another amish person who fired off the round but not sure of that now. I heard no charges are to be filed as the person came forward after nieghbors stated they heard a shot about the same time this incident happened.

[wyntrout]

Have you ever thrown anything out of a car doing 60 miles an hour? Would you like to have a 250-grain lead ball tossed laterally out the window to strike you in the head?? Think about the damage to mailboxes and street signs. The lead bullet in this instance was probably doing at least 120 mph, or 176 fps... about twice the speed of a fast thrown baseball... with a small cross section giving a lot of foot-pounds of energy... enough to damage a human skull and cause death in the right area... which is why we use lead... high density.
And, yes, it would seem that the idiot fired it at about a 45° angle giving it close to maximum range.

Wynn:rolleyes:

[jocko]

I still ain't buyin at 45 degrees that it can go a mile to 1.5 miles which is what they are saying, they will get to the bottom of this, as they supposably know the shooter, have the gun and will test it out and if indeed it washis muzzleloader than I am dead wrong in my assumption . Even if 45 degree would produce this possably, a degree even one degree off plus orminus can mean a hell of alot of lost distance. Again we also don't know the powder load behind that muzzleoader either. We don' tknow if it was a 45 or 50 or 54 caliber either. to many vbariables for assuming anything...

[JFootin]

Maybe he loaded it with a lot of powder and the barrel is 4' long, giving the bullet A LOT of velocity. Maybe they can figure it out. But, IMO, anyone who shoots a bullet up into the air, no telling where it might fall, is criminally stupid and should be prosecuted. Sorry for him. And kudos for being honest and coming forward. But he DOES have responsibility in the matter, that is if they can prove it was his shot that killed the girl.

[wyntrout]

I was just guessing at the bullet weight, but 250 grains seems pretty light for muzzle loaders. That's a decent sized .357 weight.

Hey, "they" probably rounded up from 3 or 4 thousand feet. I don't buy a mile and a half for a muzzle loader with a good tail wind.

Wynn:)

[jocko]

it was an amish boy who fired the round, He came in from hunting and just fired it into the air to unload the gun. WTF ????

Inb an interview with an amish older lady, her comment was, we don't know how or why it happened, guess it wasjusst her time???? wow again WTF.:target::target:

[MikeyKahr]

This all happened in my neck of the woods. With stories like this in the community where it happened, it'll take a few more days to get.... "the rest of the story". Saddest part - they didn't even realize she was shot until she got to the big city hospital about 35 minutes away. Story might have ended much better had she got proper treatment.

Sent using Tapatalk

[getsome]

I'm not sure what Myth Busters proved about a bullet fired straight up not having the energy to kill you but I am positive of the two following cases here in Atlanta the past two years...

Just after midnight January 1st 2010 a shot was fired into the air in Dekalb County and when it came back down it went through the roof of a Decatur Ga church and struck 4 year old Marquei Peters in the head...He was taken to a local hospital but died around 3:00 am ...No person ever admitted to firing that shot and there were no arrests...

Just before midnight on New Years eve 2011 a Lilburn Ga. man and his stepson fired 2 shots into the air and one went throuigh the roof of the house directly across the street and hit Sergio Martinez in the head killing him instantly...

In both cases the bullets had enough velocity left to go through a roof of a building and prove terminal and in the case of Sergio Martinez the bullet was pretty much fired straight up and not in an arc to be able to hit the house directly across the street less than 50 yards away...

I remember a case from when I lived in Charlotte NC. several years age where some good old boys had illegally modified an AK47 to fire full auto and were shooting it at a target in the woods but the recoil from full auto fire caused the barrel to rise above their target and one bullet hit and killed a 6 year old little girl on her back yard swing set well over a mile away...The shooters attemped to fool the police and removed the full auto trigger and reinstall the semi auto factory one but they put the squeeze on one of the boys and he confessed to what they had done and they were all arrested for manslaughter and went to prison...

The problem has gotton so bad here that most metro Atlanta area counties have asked for a voluntary ban on ammo sales in the 72 hour period around both July 4th and New Years and most area LGS and Walmart comply and refuse to sell ammo during those 3 days...

The bottom line is that it's just plain stupid and irresponsible to EVER fire a handgun or rifle into the air for any reason other than an accident and if caught doing so it should be mandatory jail time period!!!

[jocko]

muzzleloadingbullets.com/muzzleloader_ballistics.html

if one reviews this chart, IMO there is just no way this could have happend 1.5 miles away, not even 1 miles away. There has to be more to this story.

One test showed a 250grain bullet with 150 grams of powder dropped 88 inches in 500 yards. U do the math.

[getsome]

I agree thats a long way for a muzzle loader to go but I'll bet you will find the answer in how the news media reports things like this by using Google maps to estimate distance between two addresses which might have been 1.5 miles by road but as the crow flies or in this case a lead ball it might be only a couple hundred yards or so...

[tv_racin_fan]

What mythbusters did was put a handgun in a ransom rest plumbed. The bullet went straight up and when it came down they measured how far into the ground it went and found that it went the same distance into the ground that a bullet did when dropped from a ballon so that it reached terminal velocity. They tried the same stunt with an M1 Garand but were unable to find the bullet due to wind drift. When fired straight up the bullet goes up then stops and then falls back to the ground at the speed it would if dropped from that height. However when fired at an angle that bullet never stops, it just travels in a big ole arc and comes down at quite some velocity.

They still shoot 45/70 rounds at 1000 yards in competition... however one must calculate carefully or one wont even hit the 4' x 8' target board since the bullet drop at that range is measured in feet, miscalculate by a couple of yards and you miss the target board.

Getsome the bullet that went thru the roof of that church actually fell thru a skylight and not the actual roof structure, had it hit the roof structure and not the skylight the result would have been much different. Over in Lilburn I believe if you did some more research you will find that those rounds were not fired way up into the air but on a far shallower arc, one of the rounds fired came thru a window which denotes a shallow arc.. makes me wonder if they fired at the house on purpose.

[tv_racin_fan]

Just the same I cringe everytime I hear gun shots on news years or fourth of july... amazes me that more people don't think about where that bullet is going to come down.

IF I fire into the air it is nothing but powder and a wad. Or a shotgun and bird shot.

[getsome]

The paper did say that two shots hit the house in the Lilburn case...The first went through the front window breaking the glass and was found on the floor...The second shot that killed the guy went through the roof in the kitchen in the rear of the house...

It is possible that the first shot was falling from the air and went through the window and the second was fired directly at the roof and somehow bounced through the ceiling and killed the fellow...That sounds very plausible as well but in both cases a life was lost due to an idiot with a gun...

I also hate hearing gunfire to ring in the new year and it makes me want to go to the basement to wait it out...I also hate bottle rockets...Several years ago it had been a dry winter and I hadn't had time to clean out the pine straw from the gutters and a neighbor kid launched one that ended up catching the stray on fire...By the time I smelled something burning and got the hose it had damaged about a 10 foot section of the fascia board and roof but I'm thankful I was awake and not asleep in a burning house...

Now back to Myth Busters, did y'all read about a recent stunt going bad? They were out on the bomb range a couple weeks ago filming an episode shooting a bowling ball cannon and one shot was a little too powerful and missed the water drum target and went over the catch fence then launched over a hillside flying in the air ending up smashing right through the 2nd floor back wall and out the front door of a house before smashing into a parked mini van next door...The guy had just parked the mini van 5 minutes before....

Betcha Adam and Jamie both said a collective "OH CHIT" after that shot...:eek:

[tv_racin_fan]

Yeah I read the article. It wasn't Adam and Jamie doing the testing. That was the other three knottheads...which isn't to say that Adam and Jamie wouldn't have done the very same thing. I understand that cannon ball bounced. I believe a woman and child were sleeping in the bedroom that ball went thru as well.

One dry summer while picthing some horse shoes with a BIL he flipped a cig over by the fence.. next thing we know we got a burning fence to deal with.