Kid tries to prove his masculinity by shooting himself in the head on live video

See, it’s bullshit like this that motivates me to destroy gender roles, not just for feminism’s sake, but for men as well. This child did not, obviously, think things through before he tried to prove how “manly” he was to his friends on video chat. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, not realizing that the gun was loaded.

About 1:15 a.m., the teen was video-chatting — police believe it was either over Skype or another video-chat service called ooVoo — with an as-yet-unidentified person while his brothers were asleep in the room in their Kensington house.

Sometime during the video chat, things went horribly wrong.

“His manhood or his ego was challenged and he said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll show you,'” Gallagher said. “He thought he was clowning around, trying to shock the other party on the Internet site.”

That’s when the teen picked up his older brother’s gun and, believing it was unloaded, put it to his head and pulled the trigger, police said.


This is a damn good justification for gun control as well — for instance, legal requirements that demand that you keep your guns secured at all times. That way, the gun’s owner, the kid’s older brother, could be charged with criminal negligence in this child’s grievous injury and very probable death. The brother didn’t think the gun was loaded either. And nobody tried to keep him from committing this act of defiant stupidity.

Let’s reiterate: a boy is braindead because he was compelled to “prove” his masculinity to some friends, and did so with a loaded gun.

Tell me this isn’t a damn good reason to break the cycle of toxic masculinity, of everyone drumming “manliness” as equated to reckless stupidity into their children’s minds. This child did not need to die this way, especially not at the altar of traditional gender roles.

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Kid tries to prove his masculinity by shooting himself in the head on live video
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57 thoughts on “Kid tries to prove his masculinity by shooting himself in the head on live video

  1. 1

    This is a damn good justification for gun control as well — for instance, legal requirements that demand that you keep your guns secured at all times. That way, the gun’s owner, the kid’s older brother, could be charged with criminal negligence in this child’s grievous injury and very probable death.

    So that his likely crazed, life-ruining state of grief and tortured guilt can take place in a prison cell rather than at home or in therapy? Capital idea.

  2. 2

    Oh, and the “child” in question is 18 years old. It’s even more tragic to think that a legal adult was stupid enough to do this, but it also means it was his own fault.

  3. 3

    Wow, first comment… Is that a record?

    Fuck guns. fuck gun culture, and fuck making excuses like “He’s suffered enough ” for the criminally negligent.

  4. 4

    It’s called compassion. Crazy thought, I know, but I find it appropriate for people whose behavior completely accidentally led to the death of a family member. Anyway, as I realized after reading the article it’s irrelevant because the guy who shot himself is an adult and fully responsible for being dumb enough to put a gun to his head and fire it.

    Don’t like guns? Do what the people who don’t like gay marriage or abortions (should) do….don’t get one.

  5. 5

    @ Gretchin
    Guns ownership = abortion or gaymarriage is a bad analogy. No ones abortion or gay marriage has ever killed a bystander for example. People forgetting their gun is loaded has not only injured or killed themselves but neighbors and other people. Cars are a closer example of something that people can buy but are also dangerous but they are also regulated. People have to get drivers licenses, insurance and can be charged for doing reckless things like driving drunk.

    Also you’re talking to Canadians who are far less amenable to gun rights claims on the whole.

  6. 6

    Gretchen, someone else’s gay marriage can’t kill me because they were careless. Guns do that all the time. (OK, they’ve never yet killed me personally, but there are a lot of accidents where total innocents are injured or killed because of someone else’s stupidity with a gun.)

  7. 8

    #4: What a ridiculous comparison. Amazingly enough, not getting a gun does not protect me from getting shot with the guns other people are dumb enough to leave lying around loaded. What if the teen had decided to prove his masculinity by “pretend” shooting someone walking by outside?

  8. 9

    This completely avoidable accident has more to do with responsible gun ownership than toxic masculine culture. But I agree in general that there’s a lot of macho bs out there. It’s my job as a parent to deal with that.

    I’m a Canadian, but I don’t believe you can legislate against stupid or irresponsible. But you can promote safe behavior. My kids will take gun safety so they know how to behave and how to identify when they are in a situation where the best thing to do is leave.

    Guns are a potentially lethal tool. So are cars, nail drivers, and chainsaws. I don’t expect my kids to be scared of any of them, or the government to license and regulate chainsaws. I expect my kids to learn how to safely use the tools. And I expect my kids to differentiate between Army of Darkness and Chainsaw Massacre and responsible use.

    This is a parenting fail, in part.

  9. 10

    Yeah, seriously, anyone making the “hasn’t he suffered enough” argument to a Canadian has to recalibrate their pro-gun mentality.

    I make that same argument about parents who accidentally leave their children hot cars or back over them in one; it really has nothing to do with guns in particular. You might be Canadian, but I’m pretty sure you’re not of the Borg, incapable of independent thought. Sheesh, if I tried to fall back on being from the U.S. you wouldn’t consider that any kind of argument, would you?

    Anyway, even for a Canadian the point should be moot. It’s not his brother’s fault this man (not kid, not child) killed himself. Rule #1 of gun safety is to always treat a gun as if it is loaded, even if you are 99% sure it isn’t, and Rule #2 is never to aim a gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot. Including, presumably, yourself. An addendum to then not pull the trigger while aiming at that person should be unnecessary, one would think.

  10. 11

    Chainsaws vs guns or cars comes down to a matter of scale. If the number of deaths from chainsaw misuse was equal to the ammount of deaths due to misuse (impaired, reckless etc) driving you could probably make a strong arguement for regulations around chainsaws. The question with guns is then are they closer to chainsaws (unregulated) or cars (regulated).

  11. 13

    I wasn’t initially sure why this was a gun control issue, or why having a law that could make the older brother criminally liable would make any difference when knowing that his brother could die didn’t make any difference to him. But why doesn’t the law ALREADY make him criminally liable since he was in the room when it happened, and the purchase age of a handgun is 21? If it had been a bottle of alcohol and the 18 year old had drank himself to death with it, wouldn’t the over-21 adult be responsible for proving the alcohol within easy reach? And if by “gun control” you mean “forced to take classes and show competence before being allowed to own a gun” then I’m all for it. As far as “keeping a gun secured” I’m not sure what you mean by that. My gun is in a holster on my desk in front of me, and that’s secure enough for me at this moment. Your own security needs may differ, as would the needs of someone in a house with a 13 year old… the 13 year old is sort of the sticking point for me, because whether or not the 18 year old was legally responsible for his own actions, the gun owner left his gun where the 13 year old could have done the same thing.

    What’s more important is that this young man felt so insecure in himself that he was willing to do something so very stupid to prove something to someone else. What would have been proven is beyond me, but probably makes perfect sense to teenagers… which is why we don’t sell them handguns, but is also why we need to fix our culture.

  12. 14

    The point of my saying “I’m Canadian” is not to say that I’m marching in hive-mind lockstep with my fellow maple-syrup-eaters. You do realize that, despite the Conservatives eviscerating each and every gun control, that up until now we’ve had very good gun control regulations such that if this happened in Canada, the brother — the gun owner who stored the gun loaded and accessible and was present and did not warn the 18-year-old KID to stop — would be criminally negligent.

    And our society hasn’t fallen apart into a paroxysm of lack of freedoms and fascism for it. So arguing for fewer gun controls — or that the lack of accountability that this gun owner faces in the States is “just right” — is wrong-headed to someone like me, who doesn’t have to face gun violence as a matter of course.

  13. 15

    So Gretchen are you against punishment in any situation involving negligence and familly? If parents don’t seek medical attention for their child for example and they die.

    Does this extend to non family members? If someone backs out of his driveway and runs over a neighbor by accident for example.

    To me its fine if there is a lesser penalty for accidental incidents and they should get counselling (as should all criminals). I’m not convinced that it shouldn’t be treated as a crime however.

  14. 16

    Call me insensitive or politically incorrect, but I see this as somebody just self-Darwinizing out of the herd, and good riddance. There is enough stupidity among humanity already. The gene pool didn’t need this guy and is better off without him. This has nada to do with “gun culture” and everything to do with an idiot being an idiot.

  15. 17

    “I wasn’t initially sure why this was a gun control issue,”

    “My gun is in a holster on my desk in front of me”

    Americans are weird.

  16. 18

    “Oops. My careless negligence aided in killing someone. LOL!
    Who would’ve guessed that mishandling a firearm was dangerous. For reals, bro. I’ve suffered enough.”

    Only a god damned moron would accept that as an excuse. It’s fucking disgusting that someone is here promoting such fucking stupidity.

  17. 20

    A loaded firearm left lying around is not an accident.

    With the questionable right to bear arms comes the absolute responsibly to keep both weapon and ammunition secure. I am assuming here that logic and the basics of cause and effect apply also in the US. Or do you have a free pass on that one too?

  18. 21

    maureen.brian, I’m wondering what you mean by “secure”. Right now, I’ve got a loaded handgun sitting on my desk in a holster. In my particular situation, I consider my handgun to be secure.

  19. 22

    Speaking as a Canadian who has a firearm in the house…

    Guns are tools. But they’re dangerous tools, because they are exquisitely efficient at destroying whatever happens to be in front of the muzzle when discharged. So I’m all for regulation, and safety, and training and background checks. I have children in the house, so I have a breech lock in place and the ammunition is stored securely elsewhere. When my kids are old enough they’ll be trained in firearm safety, and will be taught not to fear firearms, but to respect them like any dangerous tool.

    As far as the 18-year old goes, that’s nothing but horrific and tragic. If one of my kids killed themselves because I was lax in securing my weapon, I’m pretty sure I’d end up in a psychiatric ward. Or maybe a grave.

  20. 23

    maureen.brian, I’m wondering what you mean by “secure”. Right now, I’ve got a loaded handgun sitting on my desk in a holster. In my particular situation, I consider my handgun to be secure.

    But would you consider that secure if you were asleep and there was/were someone/people around still awake with apparently no training in handling firearms?

  21. 24

    Yes, Improbable Joe, because you are wide awake and not, as far as I know, drunk or drugged to the eyeballs. You can see that loaded handgun and people approaching you will know that you have it and that it is almost certainly loaded.

    Totally different situation.

  22. 25

    maureen.brian & Drivebyposter: My point exactly. I’m in my home, not shitfaced or drugged up out of my mind, and the only people here are me and my wife. When I’m sleeping it is on the nightstand, still in its holster where I can’t accidentally hook my finger onto the trigger. If I had people over, especially people over and drinking, it would be locked up and put away. If I had kids I’d have a whole other plan in operation.

    The problem is not a gun that is or isn’t loaded, is or isn’t locked up. The problem is not taking an active position on the security of a deadly weapon based on a serious examination of the individual situation. That’s why we need to have stricter rules about gun safety education rather than just selling handguns to anyone over 21 with a pulse and without too much of a criminal record. According to a quick Google search, the law in Pennsylvania requires guns to be sold with locks, and if you’re in a house with a 13 year old the lock should probably go on the gun when you’re sleeping if you don’t own a handgun safe.

  23. 26

    Every child needs to know that guns aren’t toys so you
    Treat every gun as if it is loaded!
    Never point a gun at anything you’re not ready to destroy!

    This one didn’t follow the rules and proved why they are so important!

  24. 27

    @ Joe:
    Then we are mostly in agreement. I would still say it’d better to not have it loaded, even when it’s just you and the wife there.

    What kind of pistol do you have?

  25. 28

    When I was 10 years old living in Texas I received my first course in firearm safety as a short course given to all 5th graders at the public school I attended. Invaluable education in my opinion. Since then I have received much more education and experience in the use of firearms. In any event, given the prevalence of firearms in our societies, Canadian and American, and given the potential disastrous consequences of mishandling and misuse of firearms I think that firearm safety education should mandatory in our schools. Even people who do not have access to firearms, or have any interest in firearms, are still likely at times to be in situations where they are in the presence of firearms. To be knowledgable and aware of what is safe and unsafe can and will save lives. This is no less reasonable than mandatory sex education and for similar reasons. You can’t fix stupid, but you can fix ignorance.

    My opinion on prosecuting the surviving brother? I should well imagine that he will suffer enough through the course of his life that criminal charges and jail time would constitute cruelty. But maybe I am overly compassionate and not ‘tough’ enough on crime, I dunno?

  26. 29

    @Drivebyposter:

    I keep it loaded for convenience, and because I take it out when I go for walks with my dog after dark or when my wife goes outside to smoke. In a very real sense, I feel like I’m being more careful by leaving it loaded all the time rather than loading and unloading it constantly. I prefer to leave it in the holster when I’m not cleaning it or actually shooting it at the local range.

    It is a full-sized Springfield XD(M) .40S&W, which is one of the few full-sized autos that fits in my small hands. Plus it came with a whole crapload of accessories like a lockable carrying case, cleaning brush, and four extra magazines. No safety lever though, which is another reason I leave it in the holster.

  27. 30

    @28

    I dunno about the prevalence of guns in canadian lives. For one thing handguns are prohibited up here not to mention concealing one in public. Most of the firearms are rifles and shot guns in rural areas. Here in the city I’d have a hard time naming people I’ve known who owned one.

  28. 31

    When I was 10 years old living in Texas I received my first course in firearm safety as a short course given to all 5th graders at the public school I attended. Invaluable education in my opinion.

    …damn, if only they’d do as much down here for sex ed. /derail

  29. SH
    33

    Improbable Joe, do you live in a warzone? Are you a retired assassin?

    That’s where my mind went, actually; retired assassin. Why else would you be so afraid as to need a gun to potentially kill assailants with any time you leave your house?

    I don’t think most Americans realize just how foreign their gun culture is to most Canadians, and how excessive and absurd it sounds to someone not immersed in it.

  30. 34

    I don’t think most Americans realize just how foreign their gun culture is to most Canadians, and how excessive and absurd it sounds to someone not immersed in it.

    This. Exactly. The Zvans are among the most liberal-progressive folks I know, and when I visit with them, I still find it plain odd when Ben gears up to go out and that routine includes a gun in holster and an extra clip (!).

  31. 35

    As an urban Australian, you guys are blowing my mind about access to guns. Individual hand gun ownership is really rare here. The only handguns I have ever seen are on TV or part of a police or army uniform. No-one I know in the city has a gun in their home. I have known only one person in my life who had a hand gun at home and it was locked up so that I never saw it. Farmers and hunters might have rifles, but there is very little hand gun culture here.

    Guns are subject to pretty tight regulation here and our democracy seems not to have crumbled, yet.

    The casualness of taking a gun to go for a walk seems immensely foreign and alien to me.

    Is the access to guns part of a perceotion that you are under imminent and constant threat? Why do you carry/have a gun if you think threats to your life are not imminent? I’m not trying to mock or create conflict. I really just don’t understand. Is this one of those “only in America” things that show us that our cultures have occasional weird differences despite so many similarities?

    As to the subject of the post: That’s horrifying for the young man and his family. The patriarchy harms everyone.

  32. 36

    Brisvegan

    Guns are subject to pretty tight regulation here and our democracy seems not to have crumbled, yet.

    You’re an Australian, so you don’t understand why real manly men need guns. If you want to be a real manly man then you need a gun. QE fucking D! That’s all there is to it. If you lived in a manly man country you’d understand it.

    Plus if you have a small penis, like many manly man gunowners do, then the gun is an acceptable substitute.

  33. 37

    War zone? Not quite… we’ve just barely fallen out of the top 50 in America but used to be in the top 10. I’m still in one of the worse neighborhoods though. Until you’ve lived in a real dangerous American urban city, you should really consider checking your assumptions at the door. Philadelphia, where this dumb kid shot himself, is still really high on the list of dangerous cities in America.

    Retired assassin? No, but I’m a former Marine and I did a little marksmanship coaching my last year in, so for me owning, maintaining, and training with firearms feels pretty normal and natural. It isn’t a penis extension or anything, it is a tool like the various knives I’ve carried my whole life, or any of the other specialized gadgets I own.

    I’m also strongly politically liberal/progressive. So was the best Staff Sergeant I served under in the Marines, who often bragged about his union membership. Markos Moulitsas who founded the progressive Daily Kos website is also a military veteran. Some of us learned from our military service that socialism is kind of awesome. You don’t get rich, but you don’t have to worry about getting bankrupted if you get seriously injured, you just go to the hospital on base and they fix you right up and you don’t pay a dime.

    As far as it being weird/alien/absurd? I agree completely, from a “big picture” POV. It is pretty goddamned ridiculous that there are 9+ guns for every 10 Americans. It makes no sense that there is so much gun violence, and so little regulation of gun ownership. It doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense to me, and I grew up in it. I haven’t even been a lifelong gun owner. I bought a rifle when I lived in the boonies on the off chance I might bag a random deer and feed myself for 6 months, and I sold it when I moved to the suburbs. I only bought the handgun when I moved to this city, and when I move out of here eventually I hope I can mothball or even sell my handgun.

    But what is crazy from the “big picture” standpoint is maybe not so crazy from an individual perspective. It is sort of like driving on a busy highway where no one is following the speed limit. You can drive the speed limit and you’ll get run over and cut off and possibly even stopped by the police for impeding traffic (that actually happens to my dad every so often) or you can acknowledge the irrationality of your situation but accept that you can’t change the situation, and figure out the best way for you to go with the flow of things as they are, rather than you would like them to be.

    It is academic to most of you, but here there are violent crimes and sirens every night and frequent gunshots off in the distance and people offering my wife drugs while she’s sitting on the porch and drunks with bottles in paper bags staggering through the alley behind my house and police dropping off fliers warning us about armed robberies and burglaries on our street and last week they hauled a corpse out of the house across the street from me. Yeah, it is crazy and stupid and absurd, but it doesn’t somehow become safer for me if I declare it to be insane and refuse to deal with it on its own terms.

  34. 38

    ‘Tis Himself, Australians don’t need guns to prove our manliness, we can just walk out of the house & pick a fight with any number of vicious, venomous or otherwise lethal animals. When you have to run the gauntlet of snakes, spiders, dingoes, crocodiles, dropbears, bunyips and the like, just going to the shops for milk can be an act of manliness!

  35. 40

    Thanks Joe, for explaining your reasons. Scary stuff. Totally get some sense of why you carry.

    As to the manliness issue mentioned by others, yep, that definitely comes through from your NRA nuts.

    And yeah, come play with our wildlife if you like a challenge. (Here in Brisbane, we usually only get some brown snakes, redbacks, the odd funnel web in nearby ranges, some deadly sealife like rock fish and sharks in the bay, you know, the usual). Dropbears sort the men from the boys. 😉

    Again on topic, how sad that the NRA etc masculinity thinking leads to tragedies.

  36. 41

    Same here. But adding to that, why the need to carry a loaded gun?
    Wouldn’t drawing a firearm to intimidate be sufficient defense?

    That’s actually exactly backwards thinking, which is why I carry a gun with a round in the chamber and no safety.

    Here’s the problem: if you open-carry a gun the way I do, it is just as intimidating as drawing it. Someone who isn’t intimidated by seeing a gun might not be intimidated by you drawing it. And if for some reason they figure out that you aren’t going to pull the trigger or that you aren’t loaded, what you’ve done is escalated the situation to the point that they are likely to take your gun and kill you with it.

    If you aren’t willing and prepped to pull the trigger, you shouldn’t even own the gun. It is the dangerous flip-side of being TOO eager to pull the trigger. Ironically, owning a handgun has made me a LOT less confrontational, to avoid putting myself in a situation to use it.

  37. 42

    BTW… I HATE the NRA. They are basically one half advertising arm of the gum manufacturers, and one half right-wing political operatives stoking racial fears for electoral gain. The fact is that modern production standards produce guns that need never be replaced, and there’s already almost one gun per person in America, so the only way to keep selling guns is to convince people that they need more than one. So they sell racist fear and resentment, along with false claims that the government is going to take their guns away.

    And of course a side effect is that the most violent and paranoid people in America own multiple guns and contribute to a pretty frightening culture for the rest of us.

  38. 43

    @30 said:

    I dunno about the prevalence of guns in canadian lives. For one thing handguns are prohibited up here not to mention concealing one in public. Most of the firearms are rifles and shot guns in rural areas. Here in the city I’d have a hard time naming people I’ve known who owned one.

    This is not entirely accurate. Handguns are technically restricted, long guns are non-restricted. You need an extra level of license (i.e., restricted) to purchase or own a handgun…and, unlike long guns, you also need to be a member of a range that attests to your membership in good standing, and you need their signature to obtain an Authorization to Transport that allows you to bring the handgun from your house to the range and back only (the ATT may have a different name now). Prohibited firearms include such things as automatic weapons; a prohibited license is not available to civilians, for obvious reasons. Interestingly, I believe you still don’t need a license to purchase a bow, at least not in Ontario.

    Having grown up on a farm and lived to some extent outdoors for a large part of my early life, I have owned and currently own a number of firearms, including handguns. Have hunted, but don’t do it any more; I use them only for target, trap and skeet shooting, activities that I thoroughly enjoy. We were always taught the strictest firearm safety. Our parents made it very clear that a firearm is actually NOT a tool, and it is dangerous to think of it in that way – a tool may have many purposes or possible uses, but a firearm has just one: It kills things. More specifically, it puts (usually fatal) holes in things.

    Not knowing the context of the situation here makes it very difficult to decide how I would desire that justice be done. I can say this, however: If I had left a loaded firearm unattended and with easy access to anyone in my family, and they had used it on themselves in this manner, I would think of nothing but being the next in line. It is an absolute nightmare, and it is the reason that weapons like firearms require not only training, but respect, discipline, responsibility, and the proper licensing and control. I know it might perturb some on this blog to hear it, but there are some who should never own or handle firearms. It is not a right, in my mind. It is a privilege, and a far more exclusive one than even driving a car. You earn the privilege by demonstrating your capability to be responsible.

  39. 44

    …earn the privilege by demonstrating your capability to be responsibleresponsibility.

    I prefer this tighter version. Capability is not sufficient.

  40. 45

    @Improbable Joe #41:

    But adding to that, why the need to carry a loaded gun?
    Wouldn’t drawing a firearm to intimidate be sufficient defense?

    Here’s the problem: if you open-carry a gun the way I do, it is just as intimidating as drawing it.

    Oops, I didn’t account for both concealed and open in the phrasing.
    drawing displaying

    Someone who isn’t intimidated by seeing a gun might not be intimidated by you drawing it.

    But that still narrows the pool of someones who might attack any person, to just someones who might attack an apparently-armed person.
     
    From the description of your cirumstances, which I’d missed while writing my own comment, I can definitely see why even that undeterred subset is still probable enough for you to worry about.

    And no disagreement on the recklessness of carrying a loaded weapon one isn’t prepared to discharge. Though I was premising the question on people who carried but weren’t seriously expecting to encounter assailants who were that bold.

  41. SH
    47

    Assumptions are tricky things. I’m not assuming your situation is perfectly safe, nor that you’re a bad person for owning a gun, nor that individually sometimes it feels inevitable to just shrug your shoulders at your own culture and try to stay afloat.

    What I *am* saying is that I find the gun culture of America to be deeply disturbing, and that includes nice, normal folks honestly believing they need to arm themselves at all times. You believe that your carrying a gun makes you safer in a neighbourhood you describe as extremely dangerous. But from my perspective, guns don’t make people safe. Guns are the opposite of safe. That’s the whole point of a gun, it shoots things.

    I live in Canada, and I am, indeed, fairly safe. But just as I’m not going to assume you’re a bad person for believing your gun makes you safer, you shouldn’t assume I find living in dangerous situations an academic exercise. To me it’s very personal, because a large amount of my family is, currently, in a far less secure situation. They live in South Africa, where violent crime is far worse than in America. I have relatives that have been held up in their cars, held hostage, been present at a shooting, been robbed, and been stabbed in the course of a robbery. Recently, my uncle was targeted for an armed robbery where the modus operandi is to break in, capture the occupants of the house, torture them into revealing and opening their concealed safe (my uncle is a relatively wealthy man), and then kill them. It’s not an exaggeration to say that if they hadn’t escaped, they would have been horrifically murdered.

    My uncle owns a gun, actually. But it didn’t deter anyone, or keep him safe. In fact, standing his ground would most likely have gotten him killed.

  42. 50

    Men will certainly not stop to comply with gender roles before women stop to gratify such compliance. (Yes I know in this case no women seem to have been involved.) But this post is ironic for two reasons:

    First it comes at a time where more and more women complain that men are not “manly” enough anymore. Second Mr gender role destroyer has or at least used to have a beard. But I know what you are going to say: “That was solely your choice and had nothing to do with masculinity.”

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