Would they build houses so flimsy you can knock a hole in a wall with a pea shooter!

What drill was he using in the first place, a Fischer Price?

His crappy shack must have been made of paper for a .22 round to be able to penetrate an exterior wall and retain enough energy to kill his wife. Very sad.

...what - everybody in the WORLD? Or just everybody vulnerable to bullets?

Heh - typical Yank idiocy, but then what do you expect with a president who can't spell 'Guantemanomo' without the aid of My First World Dictionary, eh?

Paris, because she knows what Yanks would rather do with their todgers.

That's all the safety checks he made? Relied on his impression that all his loved ones were safe? Didn't think to, oh, call out and say 'honey, I'm just about to shoot a gun through the wall'. Or peek outside to see if loved ones or even neighbours weren't strolling about.

So someone is dead, because he didn't take two seconds to check. Throw him in jail, because we don't need idiots walking around our streets.

typical Yank idiocy, but then what do you expect with a president who can't spell 'Guantemanomo' without the aid of My First World Dictionary, eh?

/Paris, because she knows what Yanks would rather do with their 'guns'.

/the whole effort has gone out of commenting; somehow something's lacking.

you know where.

(walks away shaking head slowly, the subtle strains of the banjo in the background.......)

But the cut & paste comment functionality misses. This yank was "two dumb" (El-Reg spelling, I really hope it was intentional)...

Does this count as a Darwin award, since she married this dipstick? Although that might be a tad unfair - no-one really deserves to get this sort of treatment off their husband.

See. .22 caliber is a very effective round, regardless of what many ElReg readers think.

Yeah right. More like he simply got angry and frustrated at not being able to drill his way through and so just grabbed his gun and blasted away, not really thinking about anything else. I know he lost his wife through this but he should be sent down for several years to show others how completely irresponsible and dumb his actions were and, of course, for needlessly taking a human life through his stupidity. Darwin must be cursing that the wrong person was removed from the gene pool.

Readers outside the US may not be aware of this, but the gun manufacturers have a sideline of powder-actuated nail insertion devices.

Basically it's a .22 cartridge which is put into either a contrivance which then fires the nail into whatever it is you are nailing. Different powder loads for different materials - I imagine your nail goes really deep if you use a concrete load on a wood surface.

Anyway, I wonder if this guy gained inspiration for his idea from this extraordinary piece of hardware. In fairness, apart from the consequences, it did apparently work.

There should be some sort of secondary Darwin Award for this guy.

Why? Because he no longer has a wife have kids with and everyone else whould be to scared to go near him!

So, first there was the bloke who tried loosening his wheel nuts

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/13/shotgun_mechanic/

Now this...

Is there any more proof required for tighter US border control?

Dead bird due to the morbid and tragic nature of this story...

It could only happen in America couldn't it!

I assume a Black & Decker was too complicated for him to operate?

I think its time we remove safety labels from every single item and let the problem of the dumb and very stupid solve itself.

Americans do!

What true red-blooded American male could resist the chance to hop in the car and drive down to the store for a drill & bit capable of chewing through a brick wall?

"no-one really deserves to get this sort of treatment off their husband"... I beg to differ - but my situation is somewhat extreme.

Anyway - enough of my problems, here's a picture of Paris Hilton.

As Duncan Ellis pointed out, 22 caliber nail guns are quite common around the world.

Examples of people shooting themselves with such nail guns:

Los Angeles:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/06/1083635253690.html

Australia:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Shot-with-a-nailgun/2004/12/21/1103391737645.html

Colorado:

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/9348.html

There is even a cottage industry of lawyers due to nail guns injuries by idiots.

http://www.california-construction-accidents.com/nail_gun_accidents.php4

I have to side with the first poster on this one, what was he trying to use to drill in the first place that failed so miserably that the only possible device to be able to penetrate such hardy building materials was a gun and x2 bullets..

however its kinda like hitting a nail wrong and smacking your own hand then needing to have another go. I wonder which bullet killed his wife, the one that went into the wall, or the one that went through the window from his first "attempt"

The tool is called a "Ram-set" (someone's trade name) and it works wonderfully well. I used one when I was building a small house - it would put a 25mm hardened steel nail right through a steel base channel and all the way into fully cured poured concrete. Bang. Bang. Bang. One bang = one nail all the way in. Think of it as a stapler for concrete. And yes, they are dangerous if not used correctly (safety glasses, gloves, and RTFM!!)

Mr. TV installer is an absolute moron, his wife paid the ultimate price for this. Now we are probably going to see a label on televisions that says "Attempting to watch this device may be hazardous to your health." (We already know they are hazardous to our sanity.)

Yeah. Only in america does stupid stuff happen, except when it happens somewhere else, like right here in old blighty where I've seen or heard about contractors taking pot-shots at each other with nailguns, idiots knifing their friends to death by accident and more idiots deciding it would be a splendid idea to walk along in front of a high-speed train. But crap like that only happens in america, right, because Americans are Stupid. Everyone knows that...

The drill was most likely not long enough to go all the way through. He probably got it started and all nice and lined up with the drill holes.

But this guy is a fool. Anyone who thinks that a gun is a tool, and not a weapon should take heed.

You can go on about how he needs to be thrown in jail for stupidity but i see something else.

Someone care to explain to me how morons like that can be allowed to marry and reproduce?

Images from the movie Idiocracy come to mind...

hmmm do they have cable or satellite tv in the klink?

... colander from a bedpan with a shotgun.

a true cowboy installer...

Mines the one with the leather fringe and stetson

Would he still qualify if he was a creationist?

... and this is quite serious.

He obviously managed to make the hole, so has he got the dish up?

That it was either a .22 caliber RIFLE or he lived in a trailer. I'm an American, but every time I hear something like this, my resolve to someday move to Canada gets a little stronger...

Yeah, like that'll work.

For those who don't know, one of the NRA's key rules of firearm safety is to be aware of what is behind the target you shoot at. That means you do look or you're being reckless with a gun.

I would say lock him up but this is in America. They have laws for frying people like him so use them.

"See. .22 caliber is a very effective round, regardless of what many ElReg readers think."

That's CALIBRE!

Gnnnnhhhh.....

And yes, having used one I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end.

he thought the wife was in the house, or did he wait till he had a clear shot. What is it they say "marriage isnt a word, it's a sentence" and of course "If i'd killed her i'd be out the jail by now" or "cant live with them, cant get away with digging a huge hole in the back garden and burying them", well we can all stop digging the holes now and just install the satellite system. either bloody idiot or bloody evil genius

He's apparently planning to hang a picture of his wife soon...

"Someone care to explain to me how morons like that can be allowed to marry and reproduce?"

Reproduction is a relatively harmless task, wouldn't you prefer to know how morons like that can legally own a gun?

We all know that satellite TV has more channels. This leads to bitter and violent arguments over the remote control. Perhaps this wasn’t an accident. He merely indulged a US passion for pre-emptive strikes and ensured he held onto the TV remote control.

You can defend them all you like, but why do you think the expression is so common?!

Also, I'd be looking at whether or not they've been rowing, or she's been playing away because the odds of shooting through a wall blind and hitting someone centre mass are not good...

What an utter fucking twat.

P.S.

Tighter border controls - to keep Americans in America.

P.P.S

When it happens here in Old Blighty (i.e. not in America, though the Atlantic seems to be the only difference these days) we really do take it as Darwinism. Seriously. It's a moment to rejoice briefly. In this case a ricochet killing the tit with the gun would have been the decent outcome though :o|

Come on man, we just want cheap shots at the Yanks, they voted in GWB after all.

Good point well made though.

Manslaughter? He should go down for that, plus waving a gun about like a complete idiot, and for not pointing it in the right direction (looking down the barrel).

As for the people who are surprised a .22 could do this, please do us all a favour, grab a .22 calibre weapon, make an automated 'kilbot' to pull the trigger, then stand some distance back and back up your claims with paper work.

They penetrate soft flesh easily, most major organs are soft. Put two and two together please (pun not originally intended). Thinish wood walls aren't uncommon out there are they?

A man accidently kills his own wife and all you all can do is make fun of him? Wow. Perhaps all of you should stop and think about what that says about you.

"...they voted in GWB after all."

Um, no they didn't.

Mine's the one made from "Gore" Tex....

A good thing he wasn't fitting an outside tap. He'd probably have used a Barret Light .50 and killed someone four blocks away.

he woudn't have had a problem lining up the dish on the satellite.

Not so much making fun of him, but of the idiot laws, in the idiot nation, which allows pretty much any idiot to own a gun. Or several.

Or don't you get satire?

Did he somehow miss the wall with the first shot?

Re house quality, many (or even most) houses in the US are timber-framed. The outside is then faced with wood or plastic, and the inside is plasterboard. So no problems getting a bullet through. As far as drills go, a likely problem would be drill-bit length. I know I'd happily put a bullet through a wall if it saved me buying a $20 bit *AND* I knew there was no-one in the line of fire.

Someone help me out here please. Maybe I didn't read the article properly, but if he was installing a dish, wouldn't be ideally be doing that outside?

If I remember correctly .22 comes in Short, Long and Magnum flavours. I've put .22 longs through a steel door like it's paper. Magnums would pack a cosiderable punch.

"A man accidently kills his own wife and all you all can do is make fun of him? Wow. Perhaps all of you should stop and think about what that says about you."

What do you want us to do, give him a fucking medal and a standing ovation?

If you are in any doubt about the destructive potential of a .22, you should remember that the SA80, M60 and AK-74 (as opposed to AK-47. No, it wasn't a typo) are all 5.56mm (new way of saying .22 in old money)

He may not have had an automatic assault rifle, but an idiot (American or otherwise) can still do a lot of damage with one.

Bigger is not always better when it comes to ballistic energy!

Paris, 'cos she'd need a huuugge nailgun!

the more people with guns, the greater the chance of a nut or wally getting hold of one ...

I plan to fit a satellite dish shortly. It seems to me safer to drill the hole for the cable from inside. That way, I know I'm not going to drill through a mains cable.

Paris because she's a dish.

Missouri is not part of what I'd call the United States of America. It's one of those "red states" in the United States of Jesusland where they hate everything and don't believe in evolution, global warming, or fire.

"(as opposed to AK-47. No, it wasn't a typo)"

Think M60 was though =)

Now now Graham, time to change your tampon.

I'm sure the yanks can take a joke, they sure as hell dish it out enough on other nations as any fan of an American Show (many that they are) could tell you.

So little point getting wound up about it, after all I've seen stands ups touring American basically said "Damn are we Dumb!", so its not like we're telling them anything new.

However I do take your point that we're probably just a guilty for having morons roaming the streets, only difference being is we don't have as many guns, which is a shame really because then we could spend the weekends improving the nation through some random moron (chav?) shootings, maybe set up a hunting season.

Paris: Coz she'd have to be the first f@#kin 'improvement'

"Come on man, we just want cheap shots at the Yanks, they voted in GWB after all."

Not all of us. And frankly, I doubt it was a majority of us. The first time round, I am morally certain it was his campaign manager in Florida, who was also the Florida Secretary of State - the person who was charged with certifying the election as having been conducted lawfully, and also the only person who could have opened ballot boxes and resealed them with the official seals before the ballots were counted; and a number of ballot boxes went missing for several hours. Makes you wonder.

The man's obviously an idiot for using a .22. Everyone knows that the cable wouldn't fit through a hole that small. He should have used a 9mm, at the minimum.

@AC

"I'm an American, but every time I hear something like this, my resolve to someday move to Canada gets a little stronger..."

It won't help... we have no shortage of redneck idiots with guns up here.

Measure twice, Shoot once.

Pretty sure a .22 caliber round is going to make a hole too small for RG-6 cable anyways...

see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/27/standardised_comments/

You can poke a hole through most walls with a pellet gun. THe guy is stupid for so many reasons . a .22 hole is not big enough. firing a weapon indoors. THe idea that a gun is a drill.

How hard would of been to hop over to the hard ware store and pick up a proper drill and bit.

[the more people with guns, the greater the chance of a nut or wally getting hold of one]

You hit the nail on the head there. Those things are dangerous by design, and dangerous at range to boot. Not the kind of thing just anyone should be able to wave around.

Basic rule of health and safety is "are you using the right tool for the job?". Trying to hammer a nail in with a spanner is asking for trouble for example. Trying to put a hole in the wall with a firearm is beyond ridiculous.

I could cry sometimes I really could - it would have taken 2 seconds out of his life to think "hmmm, is using a firearm to put a hole in the wall really all that good of an idea?" Now he's a widower and looking at time in the nick. Bravo, ****ing bravo...

Are indeed largely made of wood, with plasterboard inside and wood paneling (or vinyl) called siding.

It's entirely possible for a .22 to penetrate this flimsy construction and still have enough oomph to kill a person. .22 Calibre weapons are not air rifles, and a .22 pistol is more than capable of completing the task of knocking a hole through a US home.

One caveat, older cities - and by that I mean those colonised and constructed by the British - have brick houses.

Surprisingly, even in places like Alaska, these wood homes are sufficiently insulated to stay warm enough for most people. My own home is 30 years old and at the cost of around 80 quid a month during 6 months of winter (at least 2 weeks per month the temperature drops below -20 C) it stays comfortably at around 68-70 degrees F.

Unsurprisingly they have a lot more problems with houses catching fire. And apparently with idiots shooting their wives through walls.

Smiley because the good part about this is that almost everyone in the US owns guns - which means the problem of there being a US population will eventually sort itself out.

Having just decorated my back room, including laying a wooden floor (don't get me started), I can sympathise with wanting to shoot off handguns because everything isn't going your way. I live in the UK however, so I am glad that I can't own a weapon of this kind. I would have shot things if I had a loaded weapon next to me.

Guns don't kill people, tempers do. We all have tempers and if we have deadly force lying around... Well, it's just not a good mix.

Viva weapon controll.

...Everything looks like a nail?

It's a worry,a madness of crows.

Take care out there,

Blakkers

..dumb* gun owner.

* redundant I know.

Guns shouldn't be used on a wall, they're for de fence.

#1 There are stupid people everywhere.

#2 You voted for Tony Blair.

#3 You agreed to give up your guns. (See #1)

#4 Gun crimes in the UK have almost doubled since 1997, when the ban on firearms began.

#5 You are now oblivious to the loss of your own personal freedoms and have no way to defend yourself against the tyrannical government in the UK.

Yes, George Bush made this guy shoot his wife through the wall. Just turn your head towards America and ignore the sharp pain in your arse.

:-))))

@ Anonymous Coward (15:34)

What sort of moron would shoot through his wall from outside? There's all sorts of stuff in the living room you could end up hitting, the telly for one thing...

...is his "defence" that he thought everyone was inside. Doesn't he have neighbours? Or a postman?

Someone, please, teach him how to drill a hole in the wall, with a drill and a 5 cm wall..... and please, let him be on the other side of the wall.... THAT way , the second last thing he gets in his brain is "how to make a hole in a wall"... just before the drill itself.

He should wear a death warning sign on his forehead

Oh look, it's a Britain vs America flame war. I would like to dip my toes in for a second to point a few things out to you, though. While you're still frothing at the mouth and all that.

"#3 You agreed to give up your guns. (See #1)"

Ah, we're stupid because we agreed to not shoot each other, and that shooting each other is a bad thing. I see.

"#4 Gun crimes in the UK have almost doubled since 1997, when the ban on firearms began."

I think you've missed something fairly fundamental here. Perhaps one reason for the gun crimes increase is that things are now classified as criminal that weren't before... Also, even if our gun crimes have doubles, three times two is still only six. I don't think our rate of gun crime comes anywhere even remotely near yours, so trying to infer that gun crime would increase if America banned guns is mind-bogglingly stupid, if you don't mind me saying so.

...is what the hell does the guy use to put Rawlplugs in ? A crossbow ?

"so trying to infer that gun crime would increase if America banned guns is mind-bogglingly stupid, if you don't mind me saying so."

Except for the fact that if guns were banned in America, owning/using them would be a gun crime and no doubt the statistics would show a huge increase in gun crime to reflect this.

A couple of years back, whilst in an indoor "range" (actually a ballroom) I had a go of a friend's compound bow. Never shot one before then though, oh, and I'd been drinking. A little.

Didn't get the hang of the trigger release so I mis-shot the thing at half-draw and put an arrow over a foot through an internal supporting wall. Could easily have fitted a rawlplug in that, if anyone had still been standing or willing to come anywhere near me until I put the bow down that was.......

Come on guys, chill. It's the witty posts by the Brits that keep me reading the comments. Sure, some posts can be borderline offensive, but posting rants in reply doesn't really improve the situation (I personally can't get used to the term "yank" as it closely resemble the term "yankee" - a word of grave offense to those of us living in the southeast corner of the US - but I don't get worked up about it :p)

Sorry Peyton, we don't distinguish in slang between you Good Old Boys from south of Mason-Dixon (isn't it?) and your blue-coated oppressors with no sense of romance... But we don't mean anything by our tarring you all with the same brush, so thanks for not getting worked up about it.

To my sure and certain knowledge, some inhabitants of our Celtic fringe do get worked up about being called English... :->

For clarification, the story on KCTV5 says he was inside the house firing out, not outside firing in, so the telly wasn't endangered.

"Her husband, Ronald Long, fired the shot from the inside of their home after several unsuccessful efforts to punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means."

I'm glad I wasn't walking past at the time. It's worth a visit to KCTV5.com just to see what kind of house he lived in; puts things in better perspective.

There's a far more tragic story on KCTV5 today, though - "Cheerleader Dies after Breast Surgery". She was a pretty little thing.

Of course the guy was nuts, using a .22 to make a hole thru a wall. He should have used a 44 magnum. Or possibly Arnie's chain gun. Or maybe a Katushka....

#1 There are stupid people everywhere.

Well, yeah!

#2 You voted for Tony Blair.

yes, we are guilty of that! we have to put our hands up to that.

But I guess we really have to blame the process we have of actually being able to count votes, how many Americans envy us and our vote counting abilities.

#3 You agreed to give up your guns. (See #1)

Well for one there are plenty of fire arms that are legal in the UK, the idea that they are all illegal is nonsense, we have just restricted the types of firearms a civilian can have, you see it only took us one instant of a school shooting to re-evaluate what types of weapons we really require for personal defence. Where as over there school shootings seem to be part of the curriculum.

9am - Math

10am - English Lit

11am - History

12pm - Lunch

1pm - Get shot by classmate

Besides your own government for the past 12 years has produced more and more gun controls, so really the only difference in gun controls is our government did it in the open, while your are slipping them in the back door.

#4 Gun crimes in the UK have almost doubled since 1997, when the ban on firearms began.

Think Greg covered that fairly well.

#5 You are now oblivious to the loss of your own personal freedoms and have no way to defend yourself against the tyrannical government in the UK.

Really well glad you pointed it out because I think everyone here failed to notice all the protests and organisations that are in the media constantly.

And we don't have anything like FEMA over here, where at the drop of a 'crisis' (and crisis is loosely defined) they can take over local or even federal government impose marshal law, take you away from your homes and if you refuse to go throw you in a cell for an undetermined amount of time and take or even destroy your personal belongings.

You see our tyrannical government is going to be a bit different from yours, where if we protest in the wrong area you get put on a list and get 'interviewed' for several hours, where as there if you protest in the wrong area you get beaten up by the police before being interviewed and put on a list, its the little differences you really notice :-)

:Mines the one in with RFID & serial code on the back.

... what would have happened, had he used a nail gun?

The house was an old one. I know about those old farm houses they often have lathe and plaster walls thick wooden slats covered with plaster you can take a sledge hammer to them and not make a hole. The house is out near Truman lake and it's possible he doesn't have any neighbors closer than a mile. He is in short a hillbilly and what is more a mobilly the worst kind if this is the dumbest thing he's ever done he may be political material. Really pretty state Missouri too bad about the people.

... the NRA spokesman, Charlton Heston, today released a statement, explaining that this terrible tragedy would have been avoided if only his wife had *also* been armed, so that she could fire back ...

Has any one ordered an EGG card to restore clever – dumb balance?

Keep cheering on the America vs. Brittania race to the bottom!

Each is calling the other a blacker pot...

And, maybe Florida (many... two... one... Liftoff!) can hire some of those Brits, I mean, you claim they can actually COUNT! Wow... maybe those are naturalized Brits?

Hm... .22 cal seems good enough to go through the standard US suburban home.

Hell, anything can go through those tinkertoy homes! I still wonder why they insist on wooden-frame homes, even in earthquake and/or tornado prone regions.

As others have said, contrary to popular belief, Missouri is actually not in the United States. Recently, there was a renewed push for independence in the south, and a new country has been formed.

The Theocratic Republic of Ignorance, Illiteracy, and Insularity

includes the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina

I don't agree that the Americans are more stupid than we are in the UK; I think that this is clearly a stereotype and is indicative of us projecting our sense of inferiority on them due to our being embarassed at having to ask for help from our former colony twice and also having to pawn off the jet engine.

We also love their TV shows, movies (sorry I meant films) and music, and you know what -like, to be honest, basicaly we so like to use the same words they do as well in exactly the same manner?

Ahem.

This does not however in any way stop me from wanting to make fun of them. :)