How fortunate that no one was injured:
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – Police in Wyoming say nobody was hurt when a small gun that was inside a girl’s purse fired while she was in a Cheyenne Starbucks.
The bullet went through a chair and into a wall and narrowly missed several customers.
Police say the mishap occurred while officers were at the coffee shop around 7 a.m. Monday. They found a gunshot hole in the purse and a small, Derringer-type, double-barrel .38 Special inside.
Authorities say the girl is under age 18 and didn’t release her name. She was cited for underage possession of a firearm.
The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported that the girl’s father had given her the gun and encouraged her to carry it for her protection. According to police records, she hasn’t had any formal firearms training.
No “formal firearms training.” I taught my daughter how to handle and fire a variety of both pistols and rifles when she was eight, ten years old. Right along with her brothers.
Any Derringer style pistol is inherently dangerous due to it’s size and, hence, how people carry them (gentlemen, regardless the misnomer “pocket-pistol” I advise against carrying one in your pocket). When I carry, for example hunting or horse backing into the back country, I carry a revolver with the hammer on an empty cylinder – yeah, I lose a round but also the chance of banging something to cause that hammer to open and fall on a live one. There’s nothing worse than shooting your horse out from underneath yourself. A double-barrel would be fully loaded with the hammer on a live round, and loose, in a purse (assumably) with various sundry phones, lip-sticks and such is double a bad idea.
Truth is, you’re more likely to shoot yourself carrying a gun than an imagined assailant.
Firearms are inherently dangerous, just like cars, and their ownership ought to be treated like car ownership — education on operation, licensing with periodic renewals, and mandatory liability insurance, with penalties for failure to comply.