NRA instructor Eugene Kenny would have joined his fellow gun-rights supporters at the state Capitol Wednesday—if he hadn’t accidentally shot himself in the foot.
He was there in spirit. And on the internet.
“I’ve been watching this like a hawk,” Kenny said about the debate in Hartford over what may be the toughest proposed state gun-control laws in the country, including expanded background checks on buyers as well as a ban on the sale of most assault weapons and all high-capacity magazines. (The legislation passed overnight; the governor signed it on Thursday.) Kenny was rooting for the package of laws to fail; he said they would cut into gun-owners’ rights without protecting the public any more than current laws already do. “You can count on one hand the number of assaults with an automatic weapon” that take place in New Haven, he said. “When you have sick minds out there—it’ll be a bullet, a gun, a bomb—they’re going to do evil” no matter what laws are on the books.
Kenny, a 49-year-old licensed National Rifle Association instructor who leads training classes in pistol and rifle use, delivered his arguments in the front foyer of the two-family Edgewood Avenue house where he rents an upstairs apartment in the Edgewood neighborhood.
Wearing an NRA hooded sweatshirt, he had his left foot in a cast because he accidentally shot a bullet last week while cleaning his Glock handgun.
“I usually always cock it back and it usually ejects a shell that’s in the chamber,” he recalled. “You pull the trigger to release the slide … This time there was a cartridge in there. And BANG! Hit my ankle.”
A self-described “stickler about safety,” Kenny said he has never had a student injured over 10 years of leading firearms classes. He said he’ll draw two lessons for his students about this recent accident: How he did the wrong thing by not checking the chamber. And how he did the right thing—saving his life—by pointing the gun toward the ground, not at his head or chest, as he cleaned it.
Kenny went to the hospital for treatment. The police interviewed him there about the incident.
They’re still investigating the incident, according to Sgt. Al Vazquez, head of the major crimes unit. They have the Glock in custody as part of the investigation. The gun was legally registered.
April 5, 2013 5:59 AM
