A man and wife in their 80s both suffered non-fatal gunshot wounds while attending a meeting at the the First United Methodist Church Tellico Plains, Tennessee.
The couple, both elder members of their church, were attending a luncheon to celebrate Thanksgiving. Around 1:00 pm on Thursday, November 16 the group began cleaning up and started discussing the role of guns in churches.
According to Tellico Plains Police Chief Russ Parks, Wayne Reid drew a loaded .380 Ruger semi-automatic handgun and said “I carry my handgun everywhere.”
After removing the magazine and clearing the chamber, the 81-year-old church elder passed the weapon around for some of the other men to see. Reid then re-loaded the firearm, chambered a round, returned it to his holster, and returned to cleaning.
A few minutes later, “Somebody else walked up and said, ‘Can I see it?’ ” Parks said to the Knoxville News Sentinel. “He pulled it back out and said, ‘With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded.'”
The man pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the hand and his wife in her left side. “Evidently he just forgot that he re-chambered the weapon,” Parks said.
Both Reid and his wife were flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. No charges have been filed.
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