And The Good Guy With a Gun Was Asleep in His BarkoLounger Unarmed
So you’re sitting in your own home minding your own business on your own couch with your own wife.
An Oklahoma home was damaged last weekend by a howitzer artillery shell fired from a gun range three miles away.
The artillery shell – which is 14.5 inches long and 3.5 inches across – crashed through an exterior wall, hit the ceiling, and damaged another wall while homeowner Gene Kelley and his wife were in another room, reported KOAM-TV.
“It’s unbelievable,” Kelley said. “Unless you were here to see it or see the pictures I’ve got, you would not believe how huge this thing is.”
Oh, I won’t take much convincing. This is kinda huge even by Texas standards. By Oklahoma standards, it’s colossal.
Homeowners say if the shell had not first hit a tree limb and then the ground, the impact would have been a lot more severe when it hit the house.
The gun range owner is saying he’ll pay for the damages but that this was just a “freak accident” and everything they did was perfectly safely. Obviously not. I’m no expert on home construction, but that hole does not look safe to me. That, of course, could just be me because I don’t live in a war zone. Or Oklahoma.
Next it’ll be, “oops, we had no idea that tactical nuclear weapon would have nay fallout. We fired it by the instruction book.”
The homeowner, in the understatement of the year, said,”The people that bring these type of weapons need to think about whether it is really safe and an appropriate area to take a weapon of that magnitude and shoot it.”
Ya think?
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
These are the times that make lawyers essential as well as wealthy.
I’ve never heard of a better case for emotional distress than having a howitzer shell hit your home.
1Trouble is … folks who think it’s alright to shoot such things don’t really give it a lot of thought in the first place!!
Welcome to Freaky Friday, eh?
2I’m thinking that this was an “exercise” shell — just a hunk of steel with no explosive or incendiary substance inside. But by the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch how does a private citizen acquire a freakin’ howitzer? Maybe just back their pick-em-up truck (with the diesel engine and vertical exhaust pipes) to one parked out in front of the Legion hall and drag it off. Sure those are old and have had their firing mechanisms disabled but I’m pretty sure that a halfway competent gunsmith could clean up the barrel and rig up something to fit into the breech. But then where does the ammunition come from?
3If memory serves,Oklahoma is the one state that still makes bombs for the military.Fortunately for the homeowner this round apparently was lit or it might have destroyed the whole house.
4Is it mean of me to sort of wish that the missile had misfired straight up?
Gravity is our friend.
5The NRA will shrug this off and repeat its stance that every American has the right to fire off a howitzer without bothering to look where it’s going. Somebody will lug a loaded one around their local Walmart next week because freedom.
6okay, I’ve got an idea – how about you can’t shoot off anything at the gun range with a trajectory larger than the gun range itself? If the range can’t contain it, the shooter shouldn’t shoot it.
And really…. a howitzer?
*headslap*
7Holy howitzer! That gun range owner should
8be closed down immediately or Wayne LaPierre should be forced to live in the house that got shelled. Gives one a good idea what its like to live in the Gaza strip.
Oh, Lord how is a good guy to protect himself and his castle if the bad guys can get 105 mm howitzers ? Ah, get a 155mm.
9No, they might get an 8″ gun. Maybe Texas Parks and Wildlife will sell me one of the 14″ guns off the battleship “TEXAS”. Do you think Japan may still have the plans for the 18″ guns the placed on the “YAMATO”?
I have a right, a God given right to protect myself. Just ask the NRA.
And then there’s this one
http://www.local12.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/foursome-flaunts-carrying-assault-weapons-video-13675.shtml?wap=0
10Do you think the Founding Fathers would consider this incident part of the workings of a “well regulated militia”? Thank God no one was killed or injured. And can you believe how casually the gun range people are treating this? The gun culture in this country is degenerating more rapidly than I can keep up with.
11Of course, the Texas right to carry bunch won’t take this laying down. Look for a ‘practice’ Hawk missile coming through a neighborhood near you.
12Momma…… look away.
Holy Sh**. This guy, who runs a “gun” range…. not a “Howitzer” ranger, who allowed this to happen should be …..oh….. what’s the word…. I’m looking for….I know… SUED as in litigated…….. out of business and broke, and homeless.
I got no sympathy.
13If you do everything “perfectly safely” you don’t have “freak accidents.”
I would hope (but it is OK after all) that the range would be *thoroughly* investigated by people who know how to investigate howitzer incidents…who’d been drinking? Who hadn’t ever been trained in firing a howitzer? Who had designed the range and was the range designed to contain howitzer fire?
Yeah, the range owner better pay for the damage, and then the range owner needs to spend some time in the pokey for letting it happen in the first place. “Safely” my sainted aunt.
14And lo, re-reading the article I see that the idjits involved were thinking in terms of rifle fire and not artillery. Artillery shells are KNOWN to bounce off the ground rather than dig in, depending on the distance to the bounce point and the nature of the ground where it hits. Heck, ships firing at a flatter trajectory have bounced shells off water.
Not a freak accident. Freaks being stupid.
15At least the Supreme Court is consistent.
Just yesterday they ruled that abortion clinics can’t have a 35 foot buffer zone for safety around their entrance. This gives women their right to be harassed.
And apparently firing ranges don’t require a buffer zone either. Not that they’ve ruled on it, but when it concerns the anything goes 2nd Amendment, I’d expect we can’t infringe upon the rights of boys and their howitzers.
16It kind of reminds of the time my wife and I were out in the Texas hill country on the fourth of July and some idiot fired a fire cracker into the ground. They were utterly flabbergasted that a brush fire immediately broke out. Gee, and why don’t we let private citizens own bombs again?
17Major props to the homeowners for remaining calm under fire. Serious calm! Hope they are the “slow to boil” types who will reconsider and see to it that ‘Mr. Ain’t no thing to howitzer a house’ receives his much needed education in the correctional facility with the best Mental Health Unit.
NRA needs to learn about their missing parts, as in “fire” is preceded by ready, aim. Gun safety? They need an experienced gunnery sergeant to supervise them. A good Gunny would plant their sorry faces in the dirt before they could even ‘think’ about doing something st00pid.
18A life or two ago in a country far far away an 18 year old Micr was introduced to howitzer fire. The memory remains unpleasant and I recollect clearly being scared $hitless. No civilian needs or should have these weapons. This is well well beyond even my broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. And those patrons above who correctly pointed out that a practice round flying through your wall is way different than one that explodes and slams you face down in the rice and mud.
19Many many years ago, my dad was a sales rep for Barcalo of Buffalo. They made the Barcalounger, not the Barkolounger.
I didn’t even realize they were still around, until I had to check your spelling against my memory.
20With luck ne can conceal it in his waistband and have it accidently misfire.
21The problem is, the Founders did believe that the populace should be as well armed as the government. How else could they resist the might of the English Empire. They believed it- right up until President George Washington led an armed militia, levied from several states, into Pennsylvania to enforce collection of an unpopular tax on distilling.
22The Constitution does say that our right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
While I place personal emphasis on the part about “a well regulated militia,” the courts do not. If we can find a legal way to purchase howitzers, rpgs and tanks, we are constitutionally guaranteed the right to have them. Gun nuts with military grade weapons will be the opening of the door to meaningful restriction of firearms in this country. Citizens will finally see weapons as the danger that they are and the government will have to admit that they really don’t want the populace to be capable of armed insurrection. I know that when the time comes to shut down Carnival Cruz’s government I’ll help by shutting down the Interstate, not by shooting cops or soldiers.
The only gubmint Cruz will have is if he can convince Cuba to bomb Canada,maybe with classic cars.
23On the bright side-howitzers can be towed or air-dropped by parachute. Imagine how funny this home owner would feel if the whole howitzer had dropped by for a visit.
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