Comments on: Do not polish guns while taking this medication

By: rosignol

rosignol — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:49:12 +0000

Yeah, I’d be betting on attempted suicide.

Gun owners know step #1 in cleaning *any* firearm is “make sure weapon is unloaded”. Besides the obvious safety issues, several firearms require pulling the trigger as part of the disassembly process, and passing the cleaning patches from the chamber through the barrel is physically impossible if there is a round in the chamber.

By: Richard Nieporent

Richard Nieporent — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:07:28 +0000

Given the circumstances – he was depressed and he shot himself in the head – could this not have been an attempted suicide? That certainly makes more sense than the cockamamie story that he shot himself when he tried to answer a phone call.

By: infrequent cleaner

infrequent cleaner — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:43:04 +0000

I know it says “inspecting” in the excerpt, but for any of you who aren’t “gun people”…….

Never, ever, ever believe anybody’s claim that a shooting being described occurred when they were “cleaning a gun”. Yes, it’s of course possible. But the vanishingly low frequency with which people actually clean their guns, combined with the fact that the same folks managed not to shoot anybody during the (proportionally greater) time when they weren’t cleaning it, should radically raise your skepticism-o-meter.

Screwing around with a gun? Yes. Premeditated murder, knowing they could claim “I was cleaning it”? Absolutely. The notion of “It went off when I was cleaning it” is so entrenched in the heads of folks that it’s gotta be the handiest murder cover around.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:25:47 +0000

That's bizarre. Why hasn't he sued the gun company?

By: LC

LC — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:31:27 +0000

Wow…. Never heard of Remeron, have we?

By: David Schwartz

David Schwartz — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:21:45 +0000

His lawsuit against his doctor should hinge on whether his claim that “prescribing both an anti-depressant and a sleep aid together deviated from accepted standards of medical care” is correct. It could also hinge on whether or not his doctor warned him about the typical side-effects of these drugs (though I would imagine they would be well-known to any adult). Lawsuits against the drug manufactures seem obviously frivolous.

By: Smart Dude

Smart Dude — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:03:37 +0000

Standard warnings include no operation of machinery or driving.

Cleaning the mechanism of a gun is included under this “no machinery” proscription.

By: D

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:46:30 +0000

Prescribing an anti-depressant and a sleep aid concurrently is by no means a deviation from accepted medical practice. In some circumstances it is the norm.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:22:02 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see if those drugs were prescribed intentionally by the doctor, or after repeated insistence by the plaintiff that he “just couldn’t sleep” and was in “constant 10/10 pain” and was “allergic to everything but Ambien and Zoloft”.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:34:59 +0000

Huh.

Personal anecdote, I have had concurrent prescriptions of anti-depressants and Ambien.

Ambien instructions (along with a lot of precautions) are that one takes the medicine and goes to bed immediately.