File photo of a cannon. (credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
TREMONTON, Utah (AP) — A 14-year-old boy from Tremonton is dead after police say he accidentally shot himself with a miniature toy cannon.
Tremonton Police Chief David Nance says the boy was playing with the toy in his living room about 7:30 a.m. Monday when the cannon somehow went off. The boy was struck in the face and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The boy’s older brother was in the room at the time, and the boy’s father also was in the house.
Investigators are still trying to determine how a propellant got into the cannon, which is described as an 18th century replica with a six-inch metal barrel and a wooden base. Nance says the toy has no shooting mechanism.
The boy has not yet been identified.
(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
157 Comments
Having once been a young kid, I can tell you exactly what happened…. Young boy spent hours taking gun powder out of fire crackers to see if the cannon would shoot… or young boy sent very little time cramming toy cannon with black powder he found at the local wal-mart… either way he was just some dumb kid trying to do what dumb kids do… sadly for him it ended then and there… he probably forgot the one basic rule of guns, cannon, and any other thing that shoots something… don’t look down the barrel.
January 23, 2012 at 1:37 pm | | Report comment
Been there,done that.
January 23, 2012 at 2:51 pm | | Report comment
Actually, you can buy miniature cannons that really shoot from Cabellas. I feel bad for the family. I suspect they let their guard down. We have firearms in our house, and we’re VERY careful and keep them locked up. I even expect my son to practice firearm safety with his nerf guns, so when he starts handling the real things, he’s ingrained with safety already.
January 23, 2012 at 3:18 pm | | Report comment
HAHAHA safety with nerf guns? Ive pointed a nerf gun at someones head oooooo prolly 10,000 times
January 23, 2012 at 4:39 pm
“prolly” makes people sound dumb.
January 23, 2012 at 9:35 pm
I’m with SNIPER on this one. Nerf guns and gun safety don’t mix. However, as an adult my 3 pistols and one AK-47 are locked in three separate safes, one of them a quick access safe.
January 24, 2012 at 4:37 am
I have to disagree — My kids teach our grandchildren that ANYTHING that fires a projectile is NEVER pointed at another person..My oldest grandchild is now learning to handle a REAL weapon, and already has the basics of safety well established in his mind…
January 24, 2012 at 5:03 am
Any toy gun is a chance to teach children gun safety. Finger off the trigger until your ready to fire. Don’t wave it around, things like that. The habits they learn with the toys will carry over.
January 24, 2012 at 7:00 am
You’re shooting yourself in the foot (pun intended) if you try to make your kids treat toy guns like real ones. They’ll use the nerf gun, or water gun, or rubber band gun as it’s meant to be used (to shoot their friends) as soon as you turn your back. And they’ll be less likely to listen to you on really serious topics in the future.
January 24, 2012 at 8:57 am
Sounds like a Darwin award candidate.
January 23, 2012 at 4:16 pm | | Report comment
Seriously STFU … it was a child.
January 23, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Indeed , just glad he didn’t injure anyone else.
January 24, 2012 at 12:49 am
We made our own. I can’t imagine what it is like being a parent these days. We had to go to the library . . . these days . . .
January 23, 2012 at 4:16 pm | | Report comment
Did you ever make a tennis ball cannon? Cans taped together, baffled, lighter fluid in the breach end and tennis ball down the barrel.
It would shot tennis balls OUT OF SIGHT. Awesome.
January 23, 2012 at 6:03 pm
@James,
The best of those improvised tennis ball kinds of cannon weren’t made with beer cans (at least not the wimpy aluminum ones of today), but with the thicker metal cans for the tennis balls themselves (at least they _used_ to be that way).
I once exploded one of those into shrapnel with a friend, a miracle we weren’t hurt, but when it blew, it tossed us both several feet away onto our keesters with our ears ringing for the next hour…
We were shaking our heads and looking at each other and taking physical & visual inventory of whether either of us were really hurt or not – and still in seated positions on the driveway looking at the ruin of our improvised cannon about 45 seconds later, when we heard the tennis ball bounce on the driveway nearby. We laughed for 20 minutes. (It was our 4th shot following 2 near-duds that really heated the cans up and made the liquid propellant for the 4th shot vaporize quickly and VERY efficiently.)
January 24, 2012 at 7:05 am
Bingo. We used to do the same until we had some money. Then, we made black powder pipe cannons. However, we stayed clear of the muzzle and went behind hard cover before we ignited…
January 23, 2012 at 4:28 pm | | Report comment
Actually, due to the Consumer Products Safety Commission you can’t take firecrackers apart and get usable powder anymore. The firecrackers also contain less than half the powder they once did. A clay plug in the end of them will break up and contaminate the powder making it almost unigniteable. The clay plug in the end also serves to protect a person who holds the firecracker in their hand to long so when it goes off there is no injury or even pain. You’re left with the end of the firecracker in your hand. The ironic thing is that I’ve had the old firecrackers go off in my hand MANY TIMES as a kid and it hurt but did no real harm. Now with the ends of the firecrackers made of clay plugs instead of just paper all these plugs go shooting of in who knows what direction making for a REAL danger to your eyes. Stupid government. Same thing with sparklers. The old formula, which was only changed in the last year or two, could be ground up to make “sparkler bomgs”. Check them out on youtube. But the new formula doesn’t burn fast enough to make a bomb. So the CPSC took what was a boring firework and made it even MORE boring since it also doesn’t burn very well when used as intended. THANKS CPSC for keeping us safe from ourselves and making the Fourth of July so much more fun!!!!
January 23, 2012 at 6:23 pm | | Report comment
OMG! When I was a kid and we had REAL metal sparklers, I grabbed a hot spent one. Hurt like hell, left a temp burn line across my palm, and guess what? I didn’t make that mistake again! May have even ingrained something in my brain that protected me from countless potential future injuries. Then years later they were made “safer”. Making them with wood and paper and some lame ass ingredients that make a little mini torch. These are almost 100% safer because no one wants them! There’s no spark, just a torch that would be perfect for setting fires, or burning peoples eyes out.
January 23, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Did you read recently how two women in Chicago were attacked with a lye solution made from Drano. The stupid council passed an ordinance that all Drano sales now must be registered with that person’s photo ID. Stupid.
Freedom always involves the potential for harming yourself. They take our freedoms away to keep us safe from ourselves, supposedly. Time to put that trash out. I imagine if you want to rock climb or some such in the not too distant future you’re going to have to get a federal license to do so…..
January 23, 2012 at 11:49 pm
I don’t know where you buy your firecrackers friend, but here in Wyoming, we can still unwrap black cats, and you can buy M80s that’ll blow your fingers off.
January 24, 2012 at 1:45 am
I got that information by observing the firecrackers around here and also noticing the change in the formulation for sparklers. I was told by the owner of a MAJOR fireworks chemical supplier (for the amatuer pyrotechnics market) that the CPSC was responsible. Perhaps Wyoming has ignored the CPSC much like Montana has ignored the BATFE on gun manufactering??
January 24, 2012 at 6:09 am
BTW, this supplier told me personally that he spends $50K per month doing legal battles with the CPSC. I believe it. They’re trying to make the world safe for all idiots and taking away our freedoms while doing it!!!
January 24, 2012 at 6:11 am
Good thing you didn’t grow up with my grandpa or you wouldn’t be able to type.
January 24, 2012 at 11:54 am
Match heads also work well! As a kid we would drill a 1/2 hole in a tree truck, pack it with about a 1000 match heads, then lead a fuse out and pack it closed with paper. Lite the fuse and run, many times it would take the tree down!
Of course some times the match heads would self-ignite while being packed to tight, it was a fine line, came close to loosing a hand a few times.
January 24, 2012 at 12:41 pm
we used to take box’ of caps. remember caps on paper rolls? stuff them into cans and blow the stuff up in the vacent lot down the street. boys will be boys…
January 23, 2012 at 7:22 pm | | Report comment
no kidding. I had a cannon when I was a kid and that’s almost exactly what I did (I would just put the whole firecracker in there). we didn’t have video games back then.
January 23, 2012 at 8:01 pm | | Report comment
we survived because we were raised with a little more common sense than what is handed out as such in todays (or the past 20 years) time.
January 24, 2012 at 2:47 am | | Report comment
Jason Keighin—give me a break—you are just lucky to be able to hear about all the stupidity that goes on today because of the internet Grandpa—if you want to believe that people had more common sense in the past, then you haven not read your history books about the atrocities that men have the capability to do—so sick of old people condemning the youth of today…”walk uphill both ways to school everyday…”
January 24, 2012 at 4:50 am | | Report comment
I remember getting a roll of caps and using an exacto knife to get the powder out of them. Having gotten the powder out of them, I then proceeded to put the powder in my dad’s ashtray, just to see what would happen. Well, the inevitable happened and yes, I got a size 9 up my butt and no, I never did that again.
January 24, 2012 at 6:32 am
asher ………….the old people codemn the yuts of today for a lack of common sense cuz of the facts
the yuts like you foisted oblamo on America………..among other stoooopid things like occupiers, rap, gangstas, professional victimhood, etc
asher……..old people gave you a great country and you yuts/punks have focked it up
January 24, 2012 at 8:47 am
We did it with ‘strike-anywhere’ matches…
January 24, 2012 at 9:08 am
Young people are more ignorant in many ways. Sorry Asher……
January 24, 2012 at 11:57 am
Very strange indeed, but tragic. It will be interesting to see what they find out about how the cannon discharged if it did not have a firing mechanism. The family needs our prayers.
January 24, 2012 at 6:29 am | | Report comment
A little luck helps us survive childhood as well.
January 24, 2012 at 6:35 am | | Report comment
All this could have been avoided if the child had been given basic gun safety lessons would have prevented this. My father taught us about guns from a very young age, took the mystery out of it and taught us responsible gun ownership.
One of the most powerful gun safety experiences I had was at a gun range when I was young, seeing how careful even the oldest men were really cemented the respect and care that our firearms deserve. They weren’t toys anymore, they were weapons and tools and needed to be treated as such.
Hell basic firework safety would have prevented this, you never put yourself in front of a projectile. Dad taught us that before our first rocket or artillery.
January 24, 2012 at 6:51 am | | Report comment
Do they have Darwin awards for juveniles?
JJ The Fed
January 24, 2012 at 10:01 am | | Report comment
all it takes is common since. how often to do you hear about a country raised farm kid accidentially shooting himself (outside of this story). most weapon accidents happen in the city because city kids are not taught how to hunt and firearm safety when htey are young
January 24, 2012 at 10:08 am | | Report comment
DO NOT try this at home, but once, when a kid, I was trying to make a rocket. I had fabricated a nozzle on one end of a piece of pipe, filled it with match heads, and closed the other end. When I ignited it (electrically) it went up about 20 feet and exploded, sending schrapnel all over the place. Fortunately, I was behind a dirt mound. Kids can do some crazy things, especially if they have a strong curiosity and imagination. God bless this unfortunate family and their child.
January 24, 2012 at 10:12 am | | Report comment
Agreed Emerald. I’m sure there were oddities such this long ago, but with the internet and digital age, it’s that much easier to hear about things like this.
January 24, 2012 at 10:19 am | | Report comment
TOY???? Cannons are not TOYS! Stupid report!
January 23, 2012 at 1:44 pm | | Report comment
well, it was a toy since it was 6″ long and had no firing mechanism.
This clearly means we must have the U.S. Government collect and destroy all toy and real cannons. Metal, plastic, wood, or any material in the shape of a cannon will be confiscated. Of course it is for your safety. Please do as you’re told and obey your masters.
January 23, 2012 at 1:51 pm | | Report comment
‘well, it was a toy since it was 6″ long and had no firing mechanism.’
hahahaha, sounds like a job for extenze and viagra.
January 23, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Also anyone with a picture of a canon will be subject to investigation.
January 24, 2012 at 5:42 am
@JackRyan
investigation AND REGISTRATION! We must know who’s holding onto pictures of these highly dangerous and lethal toys!
January 24, 2012 at 6:32 am
That’s it pal. And since airplanes, tractors and boats are not toys, all the mini-replica models you see children playing with are CLEARLY weapons in disguise.
BTW, the sarcasm is so think you can probably lean on it.
January 23, 2012 at 2:19 pm | | Report comment
Yes, it WAS a toy. Not meant to be loaded.
January 23, 2012 at 4:29 pm | | Report comment
Nice “file photo of a cannon”. That’s like reporting on kitchen sinks and showing a file photo of Niagara Falls.
January 23, 2012 at 1:54 pm | | Report comment
LOL! Great analogy
January 23, 2012 at 2:11 pm | | Report comment
Well, kitchen sinks don’t accidentally or intentionally kill like Niagra, so I don’t think the analogy was really all that accurate. Let alone the scale difference comparison.
January 23, 2012 at 4:21 pm | | Report comment
hahaha wow
January 23, 2012 at 7:53 pm
yes they do. haven’t you seen Final Destination? lol
January 23, 2012 at 8:06 pm
You’re right Pit Bull. A better comparison would be a picture of an enormous sausage factory and a story about your mom.
January 23, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Your analogy is beyond horrible. Niagara (spelling Kills) kills whatever intentionally, or accidentally gets in its way, all day long.
January 24, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Hahahaha!! Good one! I hadda laugh at that ‘file photo’, too. It’s stupid for using for this article.
January 23, 2012 at 10:48 pm | | Report comment
Exactly! . Reporter: “I’m doing this story on the kid killed with the toy cannon, but I don’t have 30 extra seconds to buy a copyrighted pic of a toy cannon or any toy, for that matter, so I’ll include a pic of an actual cannon being fired during a Civil War re-enactment. Besides, it more spectacular to the reader this way.”
January 24, 2012 at 4:49 am | | Report comment
Nah… that isn’t Civil War. The uniforms look more Napoleonic.
January 24, 2012 at 5:17 am
Don’t be mean
January 23, 2012 at 2:04 pm | | Report comment
Why not?
January 23, 2012 at 3:31 pm | | Report comment
One careless unsupervised child does a stupid thing. It is tragic. The reaction is for the local, state and federal governments to regulate model cannons and all black powder products with the goal of eliminating the use of such things. This is how progressives work. Latch on to a tragic event (crisis) and make laws controlling the behavior of the citizenry. Progressives = grow government.
January 23, 2012 at 2:14 pm | | Report comment
Never underestimate the joy liberals get from latching on to a ‘disaster’ to propel their own agenda.
January 23, 2012 at 4:13 pm | | Report comment
There is absolutely nothing on the planet more stupid than kids.
January 23, 2012 at 2:23 pm | | Report comment
That’s why they come with parents.
January 23, 2012 at 2:29 pm | | Report comment
Let’s clarify that, Ken. That’s why they SHOULD come with RESPONSIBLE parents. Good point all the same.
January 23, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Well, that may not be as profound as you may have thought it was. You don’t NEED a license to pop out a kid. Or even any brains.
January 23, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Ken – or UNFORTUNATELY, become parents…
January 24, 2012 at 8:49 am
what about our government…:)
January 23, 2012 at 2:56 pm | | Report comment
One exception: Stupid kids who grow up to become stupid liberals. You didn’t think liberals came from nowhere, did you?
January 24, 2012 at 3:40 am | | Report comment
It’s called a “Big Bang” cannon (Google it). I had one as a kid. It comes with it’s own type of powder and makes an awesome ‘bang!’ when the plunger is pushed in. It is only meant for that… however as kids do..we use to put rocks and marbles in the barrel… go figure, kids will be kids.
January 23, 2012 at 2:25 pm | | Report comment
Guns don’t kill people, toy cannons do.
January 23, 2012 at 2:32 pm | | Report comment
Not funny. A young boy died.
January 23, 2012 at 2:41 pm | | Report comment
Disagree. Extremely funny.
January 23, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Yeah, I have to agree with rangefinder. Totally funny.
January 23, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Guns don’t kill people, STUPIDITY does.
January 23, 2012 at 3:29 pm | | Report comment
Raistlin Majere, Master of Past and Present would not have found this amusing. However, if he was a bully, he would have gotten his just deserts.
January 23, 2012 at 4:03 pm | | Report comment
lol well funny
January 24, 2012 at 12:51 am | | Report comment
Packed the barrel with gunpowder. Placed ignition to end of barrel. Shrapnel everywhere.
January 23, 2012 at 2:48 pm | | Report comment
Authorities can’t figure out how propellent got into it? What part of 14 year old boy don’t they understand?
Liberals would like to see boys a lot less like boys but this is the kind of thing boys do. Anybody remember the “Toy chemistry sets” with the instructions that said” don’t mix these three chemicals together in this ratio! Anybody wonder how well that worked out.
January 23, 2012 at 2:48 pm | | Report comment
Prayers go out to this family.
You are right about boys for sure. I had never realized that how stupid young boys can be with stuff like that, until my husband told me all the stupid stuff he and his friends did. I am truly surprised that any of them survived their childhood. It wasn’t like they did something stupid once and they were lucky. They did it all the time. The odds were not in their favor. My husband swears that almost all the boys he knew were the same way.
January 23, 2012 at 6:17 pm | | Report comment
Idiot you are.
January 23, 2012 at 2:49 pm | | Report comment
Yoda you’re not.
January 23, 2012 at 3:33 pm | | Report comment
What’s wrong with loving cannon fire Bob? Civil war and Revolutionary war reenactors routinely use cannons without harming anyone; I know because I used to be a Civil War reenactor. Besides Bob, the article clearly stated that the cannon was a TOY, meaning it was a carbide type cannon that should have been supervised by his parents.
January 23, 2012 at 4:50 pm | | Report comment
ok im calling attention to how inappropriate the picture is with this article. thanks yoda. – Jedi Master joshy
January 24, 2012 at 2:39 am | | Report comment
Wow a child died !!!! What kind of people are you !!! May God give this family some peace !!!
January 23, 2012 at 3:17 pm | | Report comment
@Dennis,
I too have, lost a child, and there is no assauging the family’s certain grief.
So I am not insensitive to their plight.
At least they know that there was nothing sinister involved in thei loss of their son – meaning that nobody else did this tome him. It was almost certainly a death by boy-will-be-boys misadventure. It’s not much comfort, but then we often aren’t granted too much comfort when we lose our children unexpectedly.
That said, with today’s overheated cultural debates and political struggles in this election season, it’s also kind of understandable that to many people, those are the first mental surfaces over which this news generates its ripples.
Those people should be thankful that they do not have the reactions that people who have lost children will to a story like this one.
Of course, were we a more empathetic people, we might take some lessons from the recent Jesse Ventura/Seal-Punch story and be more mindful of the appropriateness of our comments for their sake too.
January 24, 2012 at 6:47 am | | Report comment
Stupid is as stupid does.
January 23, 2012 at 3:27 pm | | Report comment
Dear Ursus,
Your comment was not only stupid but mean
January 23, 2012 at 3:30 pm | | Report comment
Young men do dumb stuff, reminds me of taking a revolver in college, clearing the chamber totally and showing my friends right afterwards how to put an empty gun to your head and pull the trigger. Creepiest feeling I ever had. And never did again. Poor kid pulled a stunt like that.
January 23, 2012 at 3:30 pm | | Report comment
When I was 11 or 12, I found the recipe for black powder in our copy of the World Book encyclopedia. I tripped off the the drug store for two of the ingredients, the third I was able to get at home. Following the instructions in the WB, I ended up with a little over a pound of black powder cake. As it dried in the sun, I broke off a little piece and lit a match to it to see it was going to work. It did, and a spark flew up and landed on the rest of the cake, which was really close by and it went up in a terrific whoosh of flame and smoke. How I survived as a kid, I’ll never know. That wasn’t the only dumb stunt I pulled growing up.
January 23, 2012 at 3:35 pm | | Report comment
been there EXACTLY and did the SAME thing…Made it to 70 yo and loved every moment of my boyhood experiences.
January 23, 2012 at 3:40 pm | | Report comment
Amen! I’d HATE to be a kid today with these left winged conformist mentality borg want-to-be rejects running amuck!
January 23, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Most of the stupidity connected with this article are from the posters who have no sense of propriety. Write anything for a laugh, right dudes? Imagine your own child doing a foolish thing and being killed that in your own living room … and then having insensitive strangers make light of it on a blog. Truly pathetic. Go take a bath and use lots of soap and hot water.
January 23, 2012 at 3:37 pm | | Report comment
If you were the parent I really doubt you would be reading comments about your kids death. Any reasonable parent would be grieving not reading. So lighten up.
January 23, 2012 at 4:52 pm | | Report comment
No one would know about it. Shovel and shuddup.
January 23, 2012 at 9:20 pm | | Report comment
And that photo is just plain stupid. Goes to the total laziness of today’s reporters. Google a picture of a miniature you idiot.
January 23, 2012 at 3:38 pm | | Report comment
‘DAMN PEOPLE! Boys are naturally CURIOUS and will test everything to see how it works unless their Mommy shames and threatens them and makes them wear pink skirts. It is NORMAL as hell, and a LOT of the get hurt, even die….but hate to tell you, but it THAT trait that makes American Real Men the powermakers in our nation and the world…..it is the balletdancers and fingerpainters in their teen years that cripples a boy into never making it into manhood. I expect an outcry from everyone since the publishing of Dr. Spock through the Feminist Movement to have a cat fit over this statement….but I know from which I speak.
I am SO sorry for the family, and for the young wonderful boy whose life was taken so early.
January 23, 2012 at 3:38 pm | | Report comment
Amen, but I am sad to say I don’t think it true anymore what you said:
“THAT trait that makes American Real Men …”
I am afraid your comment may already be past tense… “THAT trait that *used to make* American Real Men…”
Kids today have no freedom to learn…
January 23, 2012 at 4:45 pm | | Report comment
How horrible for the child and family. God’s speed.
January 23, 2012 at 4:34 pm | | Report comment
OH this story makes sense now He’s in UTAH
January 23, 2012 at 4:39 pm | | Report comment
Not funny
January 23, 2012 at 4:44 pm | | Report comment
Since when does the end of a precious child’s life become a time to hide behind the anonymity of a user name and make jokes? Since when are hearts so callus that they cannot put themselves in the mother or father’s place and imagine their pain? I imagine with violent movies and video games that we are all just too use to death these days? Death without consequence. You will have a change of heart when this happens to you and people laugh at it.
January 23, 2012 at 4:45 pm | | Report comment
Nick, I think you may have a vagina.
January 23, 2012 at 4:57 pm | | Report comment
and a stinking one at that.
January 23, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Nick, lookit…
I agree with you that making jokes about this is in poor taste and indeed callous.
At the same time, it recalls to many of us of my generation and older, the stupid things we did as children and makes us think how lucky we were to not have shared this boy’s fate.
Don’t, though, pullout the tired chestnut of violent movies and video games. When I was a kid one of my favorite shows was “Combat” a WWII drama. I loved “Sgt Rock”, “Nick Fury”, and “The Haunted Tank” comics. I learned to shoot when I was about 8 and to hunt (and kill animals) when I was 12.
The problem is not entertainment. It is a complete lack of respect for human life – period. We are told all life is disposable from conception to old age – from abortion to euthanasia. We are told that murder has no consequences by our courts, where that crime is often excused because of the criminal’s social status, or race, or other peripheral factor.
Yes, it is a culture of death without consequences, not because of movies and games; but because we are not teaching our kids to respect innocent human life.
January 24, 2012 at 5:28 am | | Report comment
Posted on Do you people have a oceabofk fan page? I looked for one on twitter but could not discover one, I would really like to become a fan!
April 4, 2012 at 3:25 pm | | Report comment
That photo is completely irresponsible. It does not depict anything like the toy canon in the article. We’re talking something probably less than a foot high and weighting ounces and you show an image of something weighing tons, That’s absurd.
January 23, 2012 at 4:49 pm | | Report comment
“The boy has not yet been identified.”
Damn, cannon injuries must be messy!
January 23, 2012 at 5:17 pm | | Report comment
You don’t need black powder so don’t start blaming it, and you don’t need the Internet for a recipe so don’t start blaming that either. Paper matches are widely and freely available. The heads of paper matches are as deadly as black powder or smokeless power when packed into a container. Check MythBusters if you don’t believe me but don’t try it at home.
January 23, 2012 at 5:24 pm | | Report comment
With the ‘Big Bang” cannon toy, you put a spoonful of pulverized calcium carbide into the breech, with water, and it fizzes into acetylene gas (as in welding torches). You press the ‘firing’ button… and a flint spark explodes the gas. Fun!
January 23, 2012 at 6:29 pm | | Report comment
We’re all going to end up paying because 1 kid in 325+ million people got himself killed and a bunch of you cried.
January 23, 2012 at 6:44 pm | | Report comment
Gotta love the file photo a cannon attached to the story, we must really be idiots.
January 23, 2012 at 7:04 pm | | Report comment
Poor kid, we all did dumb stuff because we were curious to see what would happen. I’m surprised I survived childhood and teenage years with the stuff I got up to.
January 23, 2012 at 7:06 pm | | Report comment
Clearly the result of global warming.
January 23, 2012 at 7:18 pm | | Report comment
Pingback: Boy Fatally Shoots Himself With Miniature Toy Cannon… | Fusion Paranoia
It’s George Bush’s fault.
January 23, 2012 at 8:49 pm | | Report comment
…and we cannot forget to blame the Tea Party, Reagan, Millard Fillmore, Lincoln, and those evil wealthy white male owners of slaves who founded this country…
January 24, 2012 at 11:10 am | | Report comment
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April 3, 2012 at 1:15 pm | | Report comment
Prayers for the family,,,tragic.
I was a typical boy once, playing with matches, reconstituting fireworks into my own versions, a copy of the anarchists cookbook hidden in my closet…how I survived childhood is nothing short of a miracle (imho)
And it’s pretty much hardwired…my dad still carries a small piece of copper in his jawbone. When he was a kid back in the fifties, he and his pals would pry the round out of a .22 shell casing, crimp off the end of the shell with pliers-the powder still inside. Place on hard surface and ,using a hammer, see just how hard you have to tap the thing…pass the hammer round til it goes off…
Obviously, we;re older and wiser now…but I look at my 1 year old son sleeping next to me, and a wave of anxiety crests on my weary and drained psyche. It takes so much planning and effort to raise a kid, and just the simplest action can wipe it all away in a moment of time.
January 23, 2012 at 8:59 pm | | Report comment
The “cannon” was a non-firing desktop replica. According to the kid’s friend he had been loading it with black powder and firing wadded up aluminum foil.
Just a kid doing what kids will always do. Once in a while it goes bad.
You can’t “ban” this sort of thing. My personal favorite is a potato cannon made from PVC pipe and firing potatoes and propelled by hair spray. What are you going to ban? Pipe? Hair spray? Potatoes? Yet a spud gun will blow your head clean off if you’re not careful.
Kids are amazingly inventive when it comes to ways to blow themselves up.
January 23, 2012 at 9:29 pm | | Report comment
Pingback: Utah Teen Fatally Shoots Self With Miniature Toy Cannon « CBS … « Teen Blog !!
God rest the boys soul…
My condolences to the parents.
January 23, 2012 at 10:10 pm | | Report comment
One less moron to dilute the genepool
January 24, 2012 at 12:53 am | | Report comment
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Climbing to the tops of trees, blowing up toy cars, makeing tennis ball cannons and many other things are part of a boys life. Most of us make it thru just fine but not all. Bad judgement and calculated risk that are not so calculated can turn tragic. This is no different than falling out of a tree or being killed by a baseball. Unfortunate, tragic and part of life.
January 24, 2012 at 2:26 am | | Report comment
This is what happpens when Gun Safety is not taught. They tell the kids Nothing about firearms,,,the morons in school say “Leave it alone, don’t touch it, call an adult” and where does the education come from,,,an Older Brother who know even less about Gun Safety. If it didn’t happen at home it would have happened somewhere else,,,because kids experiment,,whether with toys or somethng they build themselves,,,Like I said we need to teach Gun Safety whether our kids handle guns or not,,,Or handle toy Cannons or not,,or whether is actually fires,,,like this one WASN’T supposed too.
January 24, 2012 at 2:37 am | | Report comment
“Nance says the toy has no shooting mechanism.” What a stupid statement. It’s a cannon. Of course there is no shooting mechanism. It’s nothing more than a tube. A design that has been around for several hundred years. Where do they get these people from.
January 24, 2012 at 3:04 am | | Report comment
A 14 Year old Boy did this? Darwin award winner. I thought it was an 8 year old.
January 24, 2012 at 3:26 am | | Report comment
I knew kids who who made actual pipe (metal pipe) bombs when they were in junior high, back in the 1970′s. They went off just fine (very loud) and no body was hurt, because they knew enough to get a minimal safe distance from the exploding steel container, bury it before igniting, or to get behind a another solid object (tree or hill, etc)!!!
January 24, 2012 at 3:41 am | | Report comment
Today I, and many of my friends, would be in jail for some of the things we did when I was young in the 50′s and 60′s. Making gunpowder and flash powder for use in homemade cannons, rockets, mortors, etc., etc., etc. It’s a wonder we all survived at all.
January 24, 2012 at 5:16 am | | Report comment
this is nothing new!! Russ Columbo,back in the 30s died from the very same accident!!
January 24, 2012 at 5:20 am | | Report comment
Darwin.
January 24, 2012 at 5:50 am | | Report comment
Dear Reporter,
I hope you read these comments and take the time to understand your position in society affords you a unique right. I then hope you realize that sensationalism has in the past caused such horrible things as Wars(Spanish American War) and prejudice (Jim Crow laws of the south). The use of the stock photo is sensationalism and quoting the authorities as not knowing how a propellant got into the toy is pure laziness. Addressing the real issue of how the boy was injured how many people survived him and any related civic impacts his death will have would have been better than just another bad gun kills innocent boy.
January 24, 2012 at 6:13 am | | Report comment
A kid lost his life and all you idiots can do is make analogies about big government and liberals? it’s not wonder you’re conservatives, it’s obvious you don’t actually care about anyone other than yourselves and maybe your immediate families.
Lets go over this real quick. When someone says “a child has died”, the correct response is NOT:
“There is absolutely nothing on the planet more stupid than kids.” followed up by such gems as “One exception: Stupid kids who grow up to become stupid liberals. You didn’t think liberals came from nowhere, did you?”.
Those of us not ultra-far right love you guys. You make our cases for us.
January 24, 2012 at 6:13 am | | Report comment
As Nate turns a tragedy into a foil for bashing conservatives. A practice he claims to detest, but only when done against liberals. LOL!
January 24, 2012 at 8:38 am | | Report comment
In 1963, my 13 year old cousin was trying to make a “real” rocket. He took an empty CO2 cartridge and stuffed it with match heads. When it was full, he tried to tamp it down with a nail, and it exploded in his hand. A large fragment went through his carotid artery, and he bled to death in just a minute or two.
Young boys can be very inquisitive about these things, and it really makes sense to teach them about the dangers of these types of things. I exposed my two sons to the dangers of explosives very early in their life by demonstrating some of the power of routine firecrackers. You can’t watch them every minute, but you can teach them to respect and understand the things that can hurt them and others.
January 24, 2012 at 6:30 am | | Report comment
I remember reading about a kid who was in his garage, packing match heads into a pipe with an improvised ram rod. Of course it went off and the blast was concentrated because he was in between two cars. He died. So the lessons I learned as a young kid were:1. don’t experiment with explosives in confined spaces, 2. never use a metal ram rod, match heads make good imporvised explosives. I spent hours cutting matches. Even used a large garage sale paper cutter. Boys will be boys. Supervise them better. Understand that horrible things can happen to nice people
January 24, 2012 at 7:14 am | | Report comment
Firecrackers have been illegal in Utah for a long time but they recently changed the ban to allow aerial fireworks some of which contain the same gun powder in firecrackers that could have been used in this kid’s toy cannon.
60 years ago dad could have bought a real signal cannon, brought it home and showed his son how to use it and HOW TO BE SAFE ABOUT IT. Thanks to nanny-state fools these days, curious kids, the ones that might have grown up to be explosive experts or weapons engineers, etc., are blowing their heads off. Ditto for guns.
If I was president I would encourage all law abiding citizens to own a firearm and take a firearm safety course – then pass along the knowledge to their teenage children.
January 24, 2012 at 7:17 am | | Report comment
I have been having rulgear facial treatments (ultradermie) here for several years and I wouldnt be without them! An hour of pampering with dim lights and gentle music is sheer bliss, and the results are certainly noticeable even as I approach my 60th year, my complexion is the best it’s ever been and receives rulgear compliments. The convenience of parking right outside is an added bonus and, when time permits, the peaceful walk along the canal takes only 20 minutes.
April 4, 2012 at 1:09 am | | Report comment
Here is another math trick This will work only with 7 digit Phone No. 1. Grab a catculalor. (You wont be able to do this in your head)2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)3. Mutiply by 804. Add 15. Mutiply by 2506. Add the last four numbers of your phone number7. Add the last four numbers of your phone number again8. Subtract 2509. Divide number by 2 Do you recognize the answer? IS’NT IT YOUR PHONE NO:?
April 6, 2012 at 5:42 pm | | Report comment
when I was a youngster we bought a carbide cannon at a wolworth dime store for I think it was like 3 bucks (a lot of cash for a kid then) we had to buy the toothpaste tube of carbide extra. It was dangerous as it cold be with rocks comming out the muzzle like a real cannon shoots a ball.
Things were different during that time in the past, as we took our 22 rifles to school and gave them to the coach to lock up until after school, where we would pile into pick up trucks to go to the range to target shoot. That alone would be jail time and expulsion nowdays
January 24, 2012 at 7:31 am | | Report comment
I taught my sons and daughters the dangers of a HOT stove by repeating those words until they kept their hands away. I have done the same thing with my guns when I clean them and allow the kids to watch. I repeat the words “SAFETY”. They do not touch my guns assembled or disassembled. I’ve done this with money in my wallet to prevent stealing, not answering the door to strangers, matches and lighters, starting up vehicles, the swimming pool, etc. They are taught to respect anything that can harm you or turn your life negative. My little kids even teach the neighbor kids how to behave!
January 24, 2012 at 8:13 am | | Report comment
Since the cannon had no firing mechanism, what follows is a likely chain of events. The child was probably putting black powder, matches, or some combination of the two into the cannon and was packing it with some improvised ramrod. If that succeeded he would next insert a projectile with the rod. The packing/loading process likely caused a detonation and either drove the ramrod and/or projectile into the child’s face. This was a fairly common occurance back in the 50s & 60s when children were attempting to make home made rockets. They were called “basement bombers” in those days because of the home brew rocket engine’s tendency to explode, maiming or killing the hapless child. I think one sane thing parents can do to avoid tragedies like this is teach your child about the dangers of improvised propellants and provide a child interested in shooting with a safe and supervised outlet for that activity.
January 24, 2012 at 8:31 am | | Report comment
I’m glad I was a teenager when this Country was still a free Country,and everybody minded Their own business.Pretty soon You’re going to have to get a permit to wipe Your own a$$ Let kids be kids.
January 24, 2012 at 8:42 am | | Report comment
I smell more government intervention. They know what’s best for us.
January 24, 2012 at 9:03 am | | Report comment
These comments are too funny.
January 24, 2012 at 9:15 am | | Report comment
Pingback: Utah Teen Fatally Shoots Self With Miniature Toy Cannon « Retch's Disturbing News!
Most of us are just lucky. In the 50′s, I would shoot the back of shotgun shells with my trusty Daisy Air Rifle.
January 24, 2012 at 9:53 am | | Report comment
Thank God he didn’t live to procreate
January 24, 2012 at 10:21 am | | Report comment
Take a kid hunting, let them see what real guns do to real living things. They learn respect for the firearm, and reverence for the meat on the table. Worked for me and has worked with my children.
January 24, 2012 at 11:11 am | | Report comment
Damn thing is, as a kid we had since enough not to be aiming it at anyone else, much less at ourselves. Duh. Not all kids were rocks, some of had common sense, which seems to be lacking in this day and age. Kids aren’t the only ones who are coming up short in common sense…adults are too.
January 24, 2012 at 11:27 am | | Report comment
On an outside chance, I hope the authorities do a full investigation. First thing I want to know is whether it was made in China and if there is evidence the toy was rigged during assembly and then shipped….It would not surprise me in the least if this occurred…My prayers to the family…..
January 24, 2012 at 11:55 am | | Report comment
Posted on She’s an exceptional egfhtir, and a very strong person. I’m very proud of her, and glad of being by her side loving and supporting her. <3
April 4, 2012 at 9:16 am | | Report comment
What “journalist” is taking credit for this work of ass?
January 24, 2012 at 12:07 pm | | Report comment
Pingback: 14-Year-Old Boy Dies After Accidentally Shoots Himself With Miniature Toy Cannon
Great. You know what’s next.
Toy cannons kill.
Just remember: When you outlaw toy cannons, only outlaws will have toy cannons.
You’ll get my toy cannon when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers…
January 24, 2012 at 1:02 pm | | Report comment
I’m glad that I’ve found this lasvegas.cbslocal.com website. You sure can write and teach and inspire. Keep writing – I’ll keep reading.
February 28, 2012 at 7:07 am | | Report comment
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April 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm | | Report comment