Darwin award! Man shot after triggering his own booby trap.

[Cattledog]

Link to tweet

A 68-year-old man accidentally shot himself with a gun rigged at his back door.

Edwin Smith was caught in his own trap at about 11:30 a.m. Monday, at 124 Blevins Drive off of Stony Point Road outside of Shelby.

According to investigators, Smith had a shotgun set up facing his back door. He went outside to feed some squirrels. At some point, he opened the door and the gun fired and hit his right arm. Cleveland County Sheriff’s deputies did not immediately know if the contraption malfunctioned or if he forgot the weapon was rigged to fire.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Capt. Jon Wright with the Sheriff’s Office.

First responders cautiously went through the home to be sure nothing else was rigged with weapons. The man was taken to Atrium Health in Shelby.

Wright said Smith was severely wounded but alert when he was transported.

Crystal Blevins, Smith’s neighbor, described him as a kind man who cared about his neighbors.

“He also stood up for our neighborhood when drugs and bad people started moving in,” Blevins said.

The wooded area where the incident happened is littered with no trespassing signs including a large red and white one warning “crackheads, drug dealers and illegal aliens” to stay off the property.

Smith added the sign to his property just a few months ago, Blevins said.

http://www.shelbystar.com/news/20181015/man-shot-after-triggering-his-own-booby-trap

[Aristus]

1. Does it count as a Darwin Award if he isn't dead and may have fathered children?

The point of the Darwin Award is that these morons killed themselves through their own stupidity before they had a chance to pass the stupid on to the next generation.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. another paranoid christofascist nutjob.

cared about this neighbors...unless you stepped on his property.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Never forget, guns make us safer!

On the other hand gun ownership clearly has a negative impact on a person's ability to spell correctly.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. A Darwin Award is only for those who either have killed themselves doing something dumb

before they have passed on their genes, or have rendered themselves unable to reproduce before passing on their genes, as the result of doing something dumb. While this was not a smart move, it does not qualify for a Darwin Award.

[Moostache]

5. Did Palin write that stupid sign?

The syntax is all Caribou Barbie for sure...

[SCantiGOP]

6. The booby trap alone is illegal in most states

for obvious reasons - a fireman rushing into a house fire could be killed.
Traps that can kill or maim a human are illegal in SC, and I assume also in NC.