A man has reportedly been hospitalised after he accidentally shot himself in his stomach at his daughter’s 16th birthday party in Texas.
According to KTRK, the party was taking place at the family’s home on Wintergreen and Crestline in northeast Harris County.
Deputies say the unnamed father was spinning the loaded gun on his hand when it accidentally went off, injuring him.
He was then taken to hospital, but his condition is currently not known.
The Daily Mail reports it is currently unclear whether or not the man will face criminal charges over what happened, and there is no word on whether or not he has a licence to carry a gun.
Recently, doctors in the United States launched a social media campaign to raise awareness about gun control, having been prompted to do so after the National Rifle Association said medical professionals should ‘stay in their lane’.
America’s largest pro-gun organisation tweeted an article from its website that read: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control.
“Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves.”
Doctors then began responding to the tweet by sharing photos of themselves – often with blood-stained scrubs – or their operating theatres following treatment of a gunshot wound.
“As a paramedic who’s seen and treated gun shot wounds in the field, for @NRA to tell doctors, nurses, and field responders to #stayinmylane over gun violence is honestly one of the most laughable things they’ve ever said,” one person tweeted.
Another wrote: “When the blood on your hands stops pouring into my shoes, that might be the day I #stayinmylane @NRA #GoBackToYourRoots.”
The NRA tweet referred to a paper that was released by the Annals of Internal Medicine journal called ‘Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians’.
The paper argued doctors should be told to encourage people not to keep guns and trained to prevent firearm injuries.
It said: “The medical profession has a special responsibility to speak out on prevention of firearm-related injuries and deaths, just as physicians have spoken out on other public health issues.”
NRA spokesperson Jennifer Baker commented: “It’s just another example of gun control advocates with the help of the mainstream media blaming law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of deranged people and exploiting tragedy to push a gun control agenda that would not prevent these crimes.
“The gun control policies they advocate for are already the law in California and they did not prevent tragedy.”
