AURORA, Colo. — Aurora has now faced two accidental shootings in the span of only week.
The first happened Sunday night and resulted in the arrest of Darius Banks, 19, who is now charged with manslaughter.
Court documents showed Banks was in a car with his cousin Elijah Wilkins, who was also 19 years old. Investigators say he asked to see Wilkins' gun. While spinning it on his fingers, the gun went off. Wilkins later died.
Investigators said Banks initially lied about what happened because he was afraid he would get into trouble. They said he eventually told the truth.
Aurora Police said the shooting of two teenagers on Thursday was also an accident. Officers said when they showed up at a home on South Fraser, south of Hampden Avenue and South Chambers Road, they found a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl shot. Police said both are expected to be okay.
Officers said one of the teenagers was handling a gun when it went off. Police haven't said anything about possible charges.
It's not clear in either case who owns the guns.
Robert Neil owns Threefold Defensive Training in Aurora. He said he's instructed more than 1,000 people in the area through small-sized classes since opening his business six years ago.
Neil worked in private security for 20 years, served in the army before that and is now a certified firearms instructor.
He said to assure safety when using guns, there are three primary rules for handling one.
First, when holding a gun, keep it pointed a safe direction, meaning in the direction a bullet would do the least amount of damage if the gun was accidentally discharged.
Neil said a bullet won't do any damage if a person's finger isn't even on the trigger. He said the safest finger placement is "outside the trigger guard and up above the trigger itself."
He said the third rule is to keep the gun unloaded until it's ready to be used.
"That would be magazine out, chamber empty," Neil said. "And you can visually look down into the chamber and physically check that the chamber is empty as well as checking the magazine well to make sure that there’s nothing in there."
Neil said it's then best to store the gun in a safe.
He advised anyone who owns a gun to also get medical raining, the kind where a person learns how to stop bleeding.
While some may be hesitant, Neil also suggested talking to kids about the guns in their homes, which helps take "the wow factor" away and makes the weapon less appealing to play with.
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