A trip to buy a new handgun turned into a medical emergency for a 21-year-old Nebraska man this week, after the gun he’d just purchased went off while he was filming himself demonstrating how to use it. The shooting happened Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of Scheels, a sporting goods store in south Lincoln, and left the man with a serious leg injury that required emergency surgery.
According to Lincoln police, the man had bought a 9mm pistol from the store earlier that day. Not long after, he and his girlfriend went out to the parking lot, where she began filming him as he showed off how to rack the slide on his new gun. Somewhere in that process, the pistol discharged. The bullet struck a major artery in his leg, a type of injury that can turn dangerous fast if it isn’t treated immediately.
Emergency crews were called to the scene at SouthPointe Pavilions around 1:08 p.m. Bystanders and responders applied a tourniquet and performed CPR before he was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Police say he’s currently in critical but stable condition and underwent surgery. Scheels, notably, stayed open for business through the whole thing, which says something about how contained the chaos actually was, even with an ambulance in the lot.
No charges have been announced, KTIV reported, and everything so far points to this being exactly what it looks like: an accident involving someone still getting familiar with a gun he’d owned for a matter of hours.
What Actually Happened
The sequence is pretty simple on paper. Buy a gun, walk outside, grab your phone, and try to show your girlfriend how it works. Racking the slide on a semi-auto pistol is a basic function check most new owners learn early, but it’s also one of those moments where a round can end up chambered without the shooter fully registering it.
Add a phone camera and the instinct to narrate for an audience, and attention that should be entirely on muzzle direction and trigger discipline gets split.
Why New Gun Owners Are Especially at Risk
This isn’t the first time a “let me show you how this works” moment has gone wrong, and it likely won’t be the last. New gun owners are, by definition, unfamiliar with their specific firearm’s quirks, from trigger pull weight to how a slide locks back.
Most manufacturers and retailers, Scheels included, offer basic orientation or point owners toward certified safety courses. The gap tends to open up in that stretch between the store counter and actually getting trained hands-on time with the weapon.
Our Take
We’re car people first, but this one’s a good reminder that “I just got it, let me show you” energy applies just as much to a new gun as it does to a new set of coilovers or a motorcycle you’ve never ridden. Curiosity is normal. So is wanting to share it.
But a parking lot with a phone rolling isn’t a range, and there’s no shame in reading the manual first or booking a lesson before playing instructor. Here’s hoping for a full recovery.