Guns don’t shoot people — bullets do

updated 4:31 p.m. ET May 15, 2007

LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. - A young man shot himself Saturday without using a gun.

Damion M. Mosher, 18, had been discharging .223-caliber rounds, placing them in a steel vise, putting a screwdriver on the primer, and striking the screwdriver with the hammer, deputies said. They were called to his home in Lake Luzerne shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday when one bullet went about a half-inch into his abdomen. He was treated at Glens Falls Hospital and was released. No charges were filed.

Mosher told authorities he was trying to empty the rounds to collect the brass casings for scrap.

Sheriff Larry Cleveland said about 100 other rounds that Mosher hit had "fizzled," but one was somehow sent with more force. It was unclear if the bullet ricocheted or hit him directly.

An employee of Capitol Scrap Co. in Albany said Monday the business pays $1.70 a pound for scrap brass shell casings.

Cleveland said Mosher's shells amounted to just a few pounds.

Cleveland said he recalled a similar case years ago in which a West Glens Falls man who kept a .22-caliber round in the brim of his hat discharged the round when trying to swat a bug with the hat, he told the Glens Falls Post-Star.

The slug grazed the man's head and slightly injured him, the sheriff said.

Lake Luzerne, at the southeastern edge of the Adirondacks, is 45 miles north of Albany.

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