Guns don’t kill people, but dogs do?
That’s the conclusion of a Washington Post report, which says that ten Americans have been shot by their dogs in recent years.
The Post’s report was triggered by news last week that a chocolate Labrador retriever named “Trigger” accidentally shot an Indiana woman in the foot during during a hunting trip, according to news reports.
The woman left her loaded shotgun on the ground with the safety off. Trigger stepped on it, inadvertently pressing the trigger. The woman took a shotgun blast to her left foot at point-blank range.
The Post says there have been at least five similar shootings since 2011, and ten since 2004.
“It is simply a reminder that guns are an ever-present element of many Americans lives,” the report says.
Many of the dog-shoots-man stories involve accidents, such as the time a Minnesota hunter was shot in the leg when his dog jumped into his boat and set off a shotgun.
Others are clearly revenge, such the time a three-month-old shepherd mix puppy shot a man in the wrist with a revolver in 2004 while the man was trying to shoot the puppy and its siblings “because he couldn’t find them a home.”
