REAL LIFE NEWS: GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, DOGS KILL PEOPLE
by Hazed
Last week a news story appeared all over the place, about a dog that had accidentally shot its owner in the foot. The woman from Indiana had left her loaded shotgun on the ground with the safety off, and her chocolate Labrador had stepped on it, pressing the trigger with its paw, causing the gun to fire. She took a shotgun blast at point blank range into her left foot.
What made the story newsworthy was that the dog’s name was Trigger.
If it hadn’t been for that quirk, I doubt anyone would have considered the event worth writing about. Because it’s not exactly unusual. It turns out that in the last five years there have been at least six reported incidents in the US where people were shot by their dogs; and a total of ten since 2004. And that’s just reported incidences. There may be many others where the wound is only superficial so the “victim” doesn’t seek medical treatment, or if they do, the newspapers don’t pick up on it.
The report I read in the National Post detailed what happened during some of these incidents, and invariably it seems to be down to the owner’s carelessness in leaving a loaded weapon with the safety off in reach of a pooch.
Cat lovers like me can be reassured that the author only found one case of a cat shooting its owner. Cats that want to kill their owners are much more subtle about it (see the second link).
Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/an-unnerving-numbers-in-the-past-five-years-at-least-six-americans-have-been-shot-by-dogs?google_editors_picks=true
http://theoatmeal.com/misc/frame/cat_kill
