This week's image is courtesy of The TSA Blog , and features six of the 29 guns discovered by TSA agents at airports across the country this week. That's how many Responsible Gun Ownersclaim to have completely forgotten about that object to which they otherwise claim to have attached so much importance in their lives, that they'd only let it go when pried from their cold, dead hands. But at least the total is down from the record 65 such guns discovered just the week before.

Our compilation this week—the 20th we've designated with our official-looking Roman numerals—features three gun-cleaning accidents, four home invasion shootings, six target practice accidents (including one in which the victim was shot at a toddler's birthday party over a mile away), four people showing off new guns who accidentally shot themselves or the people they were showing off to, three who bought guns for family or self-protection and ended up shooting themselves and/or family members with them instead, and two cops and two soldiers involved in accidents. Additionally, the Kids of GunFAIL are a little older this week, the victims being 2, 7, 14, 15, 15, 17 & 17 years old, plus two teenagers of unknown ages.

Of particular note this week are: the concealed carry ninja whose purse dropped and ended up shooting the 7-year-old daughter of her massage therapist; the jerk-ass punished by God for shooting turtles in a fishing pond with a rifle, until the dock he was standing on collapsed and he ended up shooting himself in the leg; the active duty soldier who narrowly missed a deployment to Afghanistan only to be shot to death accidentally by his Army buddy, and; the still mysterious case of Mr. Jerry Waller of Fort Worth, TX. Mr. Waller was shot to death on his own property by Fort Worth police, who said he was unresponsive to their demands that he identify himself and drop his gun, when he apparently decided to respond to a neighbor's burglar alarm with his own weapon.

Finally, one note of GunFAIL closure:



Students at E.E. Knight Elementary in Elsie, as well as students and community members of the Ovid-Elsie school district, gained some closure May 15 from the tragic loss of a classmate and friend. Paige McGinnis, a sixth-grade student at E.E. Knight, passed away in an accidental shooting in February. As a way to remember her, the school planted a tree in her honor on the building grounds. The tree is a prairie fire crabapple tree, which was chosen because of its purple flowers, as purple was Paige’s favorite color.

Paige's death was noted, albeit anonymously, in GunFAIL IV , derived from this story , which reported that Paige was shot and killed when her 14-year-old brother accidentally fired a shotgun at home, back on February 4th, a full 12-and-a-half weeks before the country woke up to the epidemic of kids shooting their siblings, after the tragedy involving the 5-year-old and his Crickett rifle in Kentucky.

Below the fold, please find this week's incidents of GunFAIL