An idiot in Cleveland left a gun out where his drunk friends could find it, failed to clear and secure it, and then managed to kill his friend when he pulled the trigger on the “unloaded” gun.

Steven Leannais, 30, made his first court appearance Monday following the shooting that killed Anthony Stanford II. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Suzan Sweeney set his bond at $10,000. Leannais is charged with third-degree felony involuntary manslaughter.

Defense attorney Leif Christman said that his client is “extremely sorry for what happened and extends his condolences to Anthony’s mother, Mrs. (Trina) Ford.”

“If there was any to trade places, he’d gladly do it,” Christman said.

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Leannais hosted Stanford and two other friends for dinner and drinks when the shooting happened, police reports say.

One of the other partygoers went into Leannais’ bedroom and grabbed his handgun.

The video shows a man waving a gun around. He asks if the video is recording and says: “We’re going to walk up to this guy and say ‘we’re going to cap this guy’s ass.'”

Someone tells the man the gun is loaded and a woman says “Don’t point that at me.”

The man points the gun at his face and Leannais grabs the gun and takes out the magazine and gives it back, the video shows.

Leannais grabbed the gun from his friend and told him it was still loaded, police reports say.

“There you go,” Leannais says in the video. “Now it’s not loaded.”

Leannais took out the magazine and gave the gun back to the other man, who has not been charged with a crime in connection with the case.

The group laughs about it and the man puts the gun in his mouth and says: “I’m going to do it, I swear to God.”

The man then says: “The last thing they say is always, ‘I didn’t know it was loaded.'”

Leannais said that’s why he took the clip out and assures the viewers he took out the bullets.

“See that,” he says putting the bullets up to the camera. “That would have made a bloody mess. See that hollow point right there?”

Someone shows a bottle of alcohol in front of the camera while the man again puts the gun in his mouth. Stanford then arrives. The man with the gun jokes with him, shakes his hand and Stanford looks into the camera.

Leannais grabs the camera and walks over to a kitchen counter where he shows Stanford what he made for dinner.

“Yeah, that’s what’s up,” Stanford says. The video recording ends.

Leannais eventually picked the gun up, lowered it to his side pulled the trigger, unaware a bullet was in the chamber, according to police reports and court records. The bullet hit Stanford in the upper abdomen, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner.

So, just to recap:

• Steven Leannais left a loaded weapon laying around where it could be found by dinner guests that he knew would be there and drinking.
• Steven Leannais allowed his friends to play with a real firearm in his apartment.
• Steven Leannais removed the magazine from the pistol, but lacked the basic intelligence to do a chamber check.
• Steven Leannais allowed his friends to play with a real firearm in his apartment.
• Steven Leannais then passed the still-loaded firearm back to his idiot friend, who immediately stuck the gun in his mouth.
  

• Steven Leannais allowed his friends to play with a real firearm in his apartment.

• The cast of Idiocracy somehow managed to managed to survive for several moments before Leannais re-acquired the pistol, pointed it at his friend, and promptly pulled the trigger.

Ironically, the victim of the shooting, Anthony Stanford II, wasn’t one of the idiots playing with the pistol. He was in another room when the video above was filmed. He likely died wondering why his so-called “friend” Leannais walked into the room shot him in the chest, and chased him into the night.

I’d frankly like to see Leannais and other idiots like him who treated weapons with such flippant and careless face far more than a charge of third-degree felony involuntary manslaughter. I’m just not sure what sentence is strong enough to scare some sense and sobriety into people who act so casually around a tool that is designed to expel a projectile at deadly velocities.

We still encounter far too many negligent discharge deaths in this country every year, with a colleague suggesting during a conversation last night that there’s at least one negligent discharge death per day, and likely more that are misreported or misclassified as suicides.

If we don’t find a much better way to start policing our own, we’re going to have gun control supporters using these idiotic shooting in their arguments that we need restrictive training before allowing people to exercise the natural right to self defense.

This sort of foolishness needs to stop.