There are few things more dangerous in this world than idiots who don’t realize their level of incompetence. It’s even worse when they mistake their incompetence with competence.

“I just had an accident. Accidents happen to everybody, even professionals.”

His gun went off accidentally during a movie at a Salina theater Friday. But tonight this Concordia man says it has nothing to do with how well he’s been trained with guns. This is a follow up to a story we first told you about this weekend.

After the shot went off witnesses told Eyewitness News that they heard him yell, “I’ve been shot!” and “I just got my conceal carry license.” It’s something that he denies.  He spoke exclusively with Eyewitness News about the training he’s had with firearms.

Cody Deneault says he’s former military, but an accident can happen to anyone and that’s what happened to him Friday night at a Salina theater.

“I think I either bumped the trigger or pushed it the wrong way or something and it went off,” Deneault said.

He and his wife say they were celebrating his birthday last Friday with a trip to the movies in Salina.  Deneault says he was trying to re-position the gun he was carrying in his jeans pocket when it went off.

“I’d say my biggest mistake here was probably I didn’t have a holster,” he said. “And that is on me, for sure.”

He ended up spending the weekend in the hospital and still carries the bullet in his leg.

Deneault says he has plenty of experience with guns. He says he was an Army MP for three years, completing a tour of duty in Africa, and says he got his concealed carry license a year  ago.

He says the accident was his fault, but is no indicator of his skill with handguns.

“You don’t hear a Nascar driver called an idiot for crashing into a wall. It’s one of those things.  Accidents happen all over the world,” Deneault said.

Professionals:

• don’t pocket carry a semi-automatic handgun without a holster
• don’t finger the trigger when trying to re-position a firearm
• understand the difference between a negligent discharge and an accidental discharge
• typically know immediately why a firearm discharged
• don’t try to blame the gun (“it went off”)

To use his own tortured metaphor, he wasn’t a NASCAR driver. Delta Force would be the NASCAR drivers of his world. Deneault is the pimple-faced delivery driver from the local parts store delivering a replacement wrench and claiming that his one-time delivery to the gate of a NASCAR shop makes him Jeff Gordon.

He’s a Thurber-esque Walter Mitty.

Deneault’s training as an MP suggests that he probably has minimal and fragmented training with a full-size Beretta M9 that he carried with an empty chamber in a duty holster. This in no way trained him for concealed carry as a civilian, and I’d be willing to bet that he’s had no formal training with his personal handgun at all.

Sadly, there are tons of Cody Deneaults in this world, and many of them will win Darwin Awards. We expect to see Deneault’s name associated with another negligent discharge again in the future. Hopefully it won’t kill or injure anyone.

If you are going to carry a handgun for self-defense, please seek out training from a reputable defensive firearms training school.