A "patriot" who brought a revolver to Gettysburg National Military Park Saturday amid rumors of desecration of memorials accidentally shot himself in the leg Saturday.
Benjamin Hornberger, 23, of Shippensburg, accidentally triggered the revolver, which was inside a leg holster, when he temporarily rested the bottom of his flag pole against the holster, according to witnesses. Park police were nearby when the shooting occurred and officers quickly applied a tourniquet that may have saved the man's life, said Sgt. Anna Rose, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Park Police.
A tourniquet type device covered the wound on the man's left thigh as he was loaded into an ambulance. He talked with paramedics and seemed in good spirits. The gun then went off a second time about 1 p.m. when police were trying to unload the weapon.
The gun was pointed at the ground in a field north of Meade's Headquarters along the west side of Taneytown Road. A PennLive reporter witnessed the second shot, which occurred as visitors to the park milled nearby.
Officers said the gun was "bad" and they had a hard time getting the rounds out of the chamber. After they forced all of the rounds out of the revolver, they secured the gun.
"Bad" gun? I thought that guns could never be good nor bad, and were simply tools that were only dangerous in the hands of criminals?
At least that's what the NRA keeps telling us.
I know people are ready to mock this young man but I think he was very brave to shoot himself as a warning to those that may have wanted to desecrate those monuments that they could be next.
Just as soon as he returned from the hospital that is.
"Y'all stay away from them monument things. I'm going to get this here looked at and then I will be right back to shoot myself in my other leg if I see anybody who starts to look like they are preparing to do any desecrating."
Source http://ift.tt/2sgFJco
