BB Gun Injuries
By Aaron Larson
March, 2005
Contents
Every year there are a number of incidents where people are injured by a BB or pellet gun. Most of those incidents involve children. While most injuries are relatively minor, serious injury can result, including injury to the eye. In rare circumstances, other types of serious injury or death have occurred, usually due to the victim being hit in the head, but sometimes due to the victim's being struck in the heart or spinal cord.
Design Issues
Some manufacturers of air guns, such as pellet and BB guns, have been alleged to have been negligent in their design, such that the weapons appear loaded while a BB or pellet remains in the gun. Additionally, some BB guns may be predisposed to jam, creating a potential hazard when the jam is cleared.
Foreseeable Misuse
Although it seems obvious that pointing and firing a gun of any sort at any person, including a pellet gun or BB gun, is a potentially dangerous act, even when the shooter honestly believes the gun to be unloaded, the manufacturer remains potentially liable under the doctrine of foreseeable misuse. As most children who grew up around BB guns are aware, a lot of kids are very careless with their BB guns, and don't recognize their potential dangerousness. Many serious injuries occur when a child, not realizing a BB gun to be loaded, "shoots" what he believes will be a blast of air into the hair of a friend. Injuries can also occur when a child hammers on a blocked or jammed BB gun, inadvertently causing it to fire when the obstruction clears. If these acts are deemed to be acts of foreseeable misuse, and a safer design was both possible and reasonable to implement, the manufacturer may be liable.
Parental Liability
At times, the plaintiff will be able to make a claim that the parents of the shooter are liable for any injuries, along with the shooter. If the parents of the shooter are taking care of the the child who is shot by a BB gun, it may be alleged that they violated their duty to provide adequate supervision to the child. Even if the child is not in their care, the parents may be alleged to have been negligent in the supervision of their own child, or in their child's access and use of the BB or pellet gun which caused the injury.