Dog accidentally shot his owner while they were out hunting

TW: mentions of gun violence

In Kansas, in the center of the United States, a dramatic incident involving a man, a dog and hunting equipment took place this Saturday, January 21. A person was shot while out and about, and strangely enough, the shooter was not human.

The dog pulled the trigger

In the United States, the NRA, an association that campaigns for the right to bear arms, has a well-known slogan:

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

In other words, they believe there is no correlation between the number of firearms in circulation and the number of accidents, suicides and mass killings in which fatal shots were fired...

But this time, the powerful lobby won't be able to use this line of defense, because it wasn't a person who pulled the trigger, but a pet.

The shot was fatal

According to the Huffington Post, Joseph Austin Smith, the victim, was in the front passenger seat of a vehicle when he was hit. The dog had evidently landed on a rifle, loaded and with the safety removed. The animal then pulled the trigger, delivering a fatal blow to its master.

Emergency services were called, presumably by the driver of the vehicle, but despite their intervention Joseph Austin Smith succumbed to his injuries. As the sheriff stated:

An investigation is underway, but our preliminary investigation indicates that this was a hunting accident.

This article has been translated from Gentside FR.

Read more:

⋙ Elderly man was shot by his own dog and miraculously survived

⋙ This dog survived having its tail 'sliced off' and then it got a job at a police station

⋙ Dog is reunited with her owner after surviving on her own for two months

Sources used:

Huffpost: Dog Fatally Shoots Man In 'Hunting Related Accident,' Kansas Officials Say