Easter Churchgoer Accidentally Shoots Self With Own Gun

UU Chalice

When I was about 25 years old, a fellow student (actually a woman) at a music workshop, on learning in a lunchtime chat that I am a Unitarian Universalist, accused me of being "dangerous." Really? More dangerous than this guy?

From a TV news transcript at that link:

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Catholic
Cross

Police say a gun went off at about 11 p.m. Saturday at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament...

...

Jason Wagler was sitting with his fiancee at Mass and heard the gunshot.

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Interdenominational
Pistol

"We were standing for a few minutes and just before the final procession started, the gunshot went off," Wagler said.

Wagler said at first no one seemed to know what had happened. Some people thought a speaker blew. But then he saw smoke.  Wagler took several photos with his phone shortly after the incident happened.

"I immediately took a step back and was about to take cover. You never know if you're safe anymore in this world. It's a shame to know you can't go into church without having something like this happen," Wagler said.

Police say a man had a gun in his pocket and it discharged when he stood up. The bullet grazed the man's hand.

... newspaper reported the trigger caught on the man's pants and the gun's safety was not on.

"I noticed the gun was handed to another gentleman. He immediately concealed it in a white program, so I took pictures of the gun inside this program," Wagler said.

The man was taken to the hospital. Police haven't released his name.

It's unclear why he brought a gun into church. At this point, no charges have been filed.

(NOTE: I believe that in this church the proper term for "program" is "disorder of service." But what do I know... like most UU's, I am not Christian... see the video linked above for a shot (ahem) of the paper in which the gun was hidden. - SB)

So... this happened in Houston, TX, right? Ummm... try Altoona, PA, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. Oh, and surely it happened in a "dangerous" Unitarian Universalist church, right? Ahhhh... no. Catholic.

I no longer attend church, but during the dozen or so years I did, I didn't know a single congregant of First UU Church Houston (apart from the occasional law enforcement officer) who entered a church service there carrying a firearm... let alone careless enough to have the safety off. Of course, YMMV...

(H/T Brendan James at TPM.)