KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (USA Today) — A man accidentally shot himself and his wife at an east Tennessee church while he was showing off his gun during a discussion on recent church shootings, police said.
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Elder members of First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains were cleaning up about 1 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 16) after enjoying a luncheon held to celebrate Thanksgiving. They began talking about guns in churches, according to Tellico Plains Police Chief Russ Parks.
A man in his 80s pulled out a .380-caliber Ruger handgun and said, “I carry my handgun everywhere,” according to Parks.
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The man removed the magazine, cleared the chamber and showed the gun to some of the other men in the church. He put the magazine back in, apparently loaded a round in the chamber and returned the gun to its holster, Parks said.
“Somebody else walked up and said, ‘Can I see it?'” Parks said. “He pulled it back out and said, ‘With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded.'”
The man pulled the trigger.
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“Evidently he just forgot that he re-chambered the weapon,” Parks said.
The gun was lying on its side on a table. The bullet sliced the palm of the man’s upward-facing hand, then entered the left side of his wife’s abdomen and exited the right side, Parks said.
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Both the husband and wife, who is also in her 80s, were flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with injuries that police said didn’t appear to be life-threatening. Their names had not been released as of Thursday evening.
Charges will not be filed, Parks said.