"Negligent Suicide" with a .500 Smith & Wesson revolver

The overwhelming super-majority of gun owners are thoughtful, kind, and generous individuals. They’re good people and fun to be around, which is why almost every kind of rifle and pistol shooting sport is experiencing significant growth in recent years. Unfortunately, in every large group there are jerks, and the shooting sports are no exception.

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One particular kind of jerk is the sadist that delights in giving a new shooter a powerful, punishing gun to shoot, knowing that the shooter lacks the skill and experience to handle the recoil.

The Internet is full of “funny” videos of this kind, where people are battered, bruised, and cut open by guns they have no business firing, like this woman nearly killed after a jerk put a Desert Eagle chambered in .50 Action Express (.50 AE) in her under-trained hands.

If you watch the video, you’ll see how the handgun spun around in her grasp, and the barrel hit her in the face. You’ll also note that the gun did not lock open on an empty chamber; the idiot had provided her a gun that cycled and put another round in the chamber before it was pointed at her head.

It was only through dumb luck that she didn’t take the top of her head off.

Unfortunately, a woman visiting from South America just went through a nearly identical experience with a revolver chambered in .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum, except for the fact that she did manage to pull the trigger a second time while it was pointed at her.

She is now dead.

The Ralls County Sheriff’s Department says the shooting happened Sunday at the Salt River Gun Range near New London. Authorities say 25-year-old Andrea Jinneth Corredor-Rivera of Colombia died at the scene.

Corredor-Rivera died of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Ralls County Sheriff Gerry Dinwiddie tells WGEM-TV that the woman was shooting a .500-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun when the strength of the gun’s recoil caused her to lose control. She was visiting family in the area.

The sheriff said the gun spun around in her hand, leading to a second fatal shot.

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The Ralls County (Missouri) Sheriff is not expected to file charges in this case, which frankly infuriates me.

If someone put to an inexperienced driver behind the wheel of a 865-horsepower NASCAR Sprint Cup Car and turned them loose, and that inexperienced  driver killed herself, would the person who knowingly put an inexperienced driver in the car not be held responsible for a criminal act?

While the specific charges would depend upon prosecutor’s discretion and local laws, several possible felony charges could be brought against the person who or persons who created the situation. Society would demand for charges to be brought for such gross irresponsibility ending in death.

In this situation, giving a .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum—the most powerful commercial sporting handgun cartridge made—to an inexperienced shooter with multiple rounds in the gun, is roughly the equivalent of putting an inexperienced NASCAR car behind the wheel with a half tank of gas.

The odds of a shooter without substantial experience firing and controlling heavy magnum handgun is incredibly low. As a result, loading the firearm with more than one round, when knowing that the shoot has little to no chance of controlling the gun after the first shot, is criminally negligent.

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Andrea Jinneth Corredor-Rivera is dead by her own hand, but she was put in the situation where she died by the negligent, idiotic and frankly barbaric acts of someone who loaded multiple chambers of a gun that she had little to no chance of controlling.

The person who handed her that firearm should face charges for her death.

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