February 16, 2005

No Report As To Whether His Last Words Were "Hey, Y'All, Watch This!"

In today's lesson - a live demonstration of which took place a couple of hours up the road from Dangerous Logic Galactic HQ, we learn the difference between a flak jacket and a bulletproof vest. A flak jacket is designed to stop relatively-low-velocity shell fragments - not bullets, or for that matter, shotgun pellets:

HOBART – A man whose friends initially said he was killed by gunfire outside a Gary liquor store actually died after he donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest and asked a cohort to shoot him.

A friend then shot Daniel Wright with a .20-gauge shotgun, but it turned out the vest Wright had put on Thursday was a flak jacket not designed to stop a bullet.

Wright, 20, was mortally wounded in the shooting and died later at a Gary hospital after two of his friends drove him there.

Why on earth would Wright have asked his friend to shoot him? Here's why:

Hobart police Lt. Leo Finnerty said Friday that Wright was going to join the military and wanted some battlefield experience. So he went to a field in Hobart with his friends, donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest, and then told them: “Shoot me. I’m ready.”

“He voluntarily put on the vest because he wanted to experience what a .20-gauge shotgun would do,” Finnerty told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.

I'm inclined to think the Army is better off not getting this guy - someone who showed such spectacular bad judgement could be counted on to make a mistake that could get a lot of people killed. Sad that he's dead, but 'Death By Stupidity' is more common than we want to admit.

Posted by Chris at February 16, 2005 12:14 PM

Category: Dangerous Stupidity
Comments

But the important question, which the article does not address, is:

Was the "stupid" gene passed on to another generation, or was he removed from the gene pool in time?

Posted by: Jim of St. Grimblefig's Monastery at February 16, 2005 01:17 PM

I tend to believe his gene pool was in need of a bit more chlorine anyway.

Where's the Darwin Awards when you need them.

Posted by: Jeremy at February 21, 2005 09:47 PM