You really can’t make this stuff up. A school maintenance worker in – wait for it – Texas was attending a concealed-carry class at the local school.

The school district was sponsoring the class as part of its program to arm teachers and other school employees, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre and the NRA’s call for America to arm its schools.

What could possibly go wrong?

You can guess what happened next.

The maintenance worker shot himself in the leg and had to get sent to the hospital, where he’s in fair condition.

As our Jon Green already reported, arming teachers doesn’t work.

Conservatives’ decision to double down on their guns-save-lives rhetoric is not only callous and disrespectful in the wake of a national tragedy, it also cuts against evidence showing that putting more guns in schools (including arming teachers), and issuing more concealed-carry permits, will do more harm than good. In a 2010 study, students voluntarily signed up for a gun safety course, and were provided with basic training and a faux-handgun (shooting plastic bullets filled with paint) that they would then keep on their person during class. At random times, an armed intruder would enter and open fire. The participants were charged with defending themselves; none were successful – not even the self-described gun enthusiast. Even with more training than is typically required to obtain a concealed-carry permit (for added irony, the concealed-carry permit class I link to does not allow loaded firearms in its classroom), most of the participants in the study were unable to even get their gun out of their holster, let alone bring down the intruder.

Jon noted another takeway from the study: “In order for concealed-carriers to be effective in defending themselves and others they need to go through rigorous, police-style training every two weeks at a minimum. Anything short of that renders the weapon holder less than useless in a gunfight.”

Good luck with that.

Sadly, it’s not like this is our first encounter with a less-than-responsible “very responsible gun owner.”

Yesterday we had the very responsible gun owner who decided to open fire at a shoplifter outside a Walmart in Florida, and ended up shooting three cars and nearly hitting a pedestrian.

Yesterday we also had the dog that shot its owner who had left his loaded shotgun on the floor of his truck, where his dog got to it.

Then a few weeks ago we had the woman whose gun fell out of her pocket at a McDonald’s and shot her husband.

Or the winner who lost his gun at a movie theater, didn’t think of reporting it to the cops, and it was found, loaded, by some kids.

Or the five people who were wounded at guns shows in 3 different states on “Gun Appreciation Day,” a response to the Sandy Hook massacre.

So good luck to Texas, as it puts even more loaded gun in the vicinity of its schoolchildren. Let’s hope they have better luck weeding out the child sex criminals than Sheriff Arpaio did.