A Texas man accidentally shot a child while officiating a wedding in Lancaster County on Saturday, the sheriff’s office says.
Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said deputies were sent to a wedding at Hillside Events near Denton on a report of a gunshot wound.
Deputies learned that 62-year-old Michael Gardner, the wedding’s officiant, fired a gun to get everyone’s attention.
“He was going to fire in the air, and as he did that, it slipped and went off,” Houchin said.
The gun was loaded with a blank that Gardner made with gunpowder and glue.
Just because the cartridge doesn’t have a bullet doesn’t mean nothing comes out of the business end.
With a properly functioning blank, there shouldn’t be any projectile coming out of the muzzle. This guy made his own with gunpowder and glue, so apparently there was some kind of glue blob that was a projectile.
The force of the expanding gas is sufficient to hurt people, even with a properly made blank. It’s why a gun designed to fire only blanks doesn’t even have a barrel with an opening that could compress the gas.
It’s why you generally avoid firing a gun of any sort in a crowd. Even when they’re as safe as possible, they’re not safe.