Posted 8/10/2004 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

I'm so sick of "it's the gun's fault it shot me" stories that I'm really getting tired of posting them, but there are aspects of this one that kinda stand out.

Last year the teen won a record $24 million judgment against Bryco Arms, its distribution arm and its owner. Bryco was forced into bankruptcy, and on Thursday, a federal judge in Florida will auction off 75,600 unassembled guns and other remaining assets.

Maxfield hopes to buy the inventory, melt it down and create a sculpture from the metal. It is tempting to see divine retribution in such a scheme, but the teen and his lawyer, Richard Ruggieri, insist revenge is not their motivation — they simply want to make sure no one else is hurt.

How 'bout melting down the person that shot him? Wouldn't that be easier?

Maxfield's life-changing injury happened when he was 7 and a 20-year-old family friend who was baby-sitting thought he heard a suspicious noise and grabbed a gun from a dresser drawer. The baby sitter called Brandon's mother, who instructed him to immediately unload the .38-caliber pistol. While trying to do that, the baby sitter accidentally pulled the trigger.

But they said the gun maker also was liable because the pistol could only be unloaded when its trigger safety catch was switched off.

I'm pretty familiar with semi-auto handguns, and I have no idea how this is even possible. But regardless of this "defect" that made this particular gun dangerous, someone still had to pull the trigger!! It's horrible that this kid was paralyzed, but the parents bought the gun and left it accessible, and the babysitter pulled the trigger. Seems like they've have about as much to do with incident as McDonald's does with making people fat. Oh yeah, we're trying to get that precedent set, too.