They don’t generally teach this in gun safety class but it’s considered bad practice to put a standard .410 shotgun shell in an ordinary flare gun. It might fit but many who have tried ended up looking very foolish, very dead or both. There are, however, certain unapproved modifications…
Start with a flare gun
Those candy-ass gun control laws don’t carry much weight around Camden, South Carolina. That’s where redneck ingenuity turns a standard flare gun into an easy to conceal and highly illegal but really effective weapon.
The lesson Michael Jefferson learned today is “don’t shoot your father-in-law with what amounts to an illegal sawed-off shotgun, unless you’re prepared to pay alimony from your jail cell.” The Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office didn’t point out the subtle aspects, they stuck to the facts.
According to the Sheriff’s Office press release, they have a Midlands man behind bars “after he shot his father-in-law with a flare gun that was loaded with shotgun ammunition.” They further inform that the “shooting happened Saturday night.” That would be June 11.
Further reports note that the injury was to his arm and isn’t life threatening. He won’t be happy about it though. His daughter will probably be just as upset as dad is.
Deputies responded, the Sheriff explains, to a call of “gun shots in the area” around Sinclair Street in Camden at about 8:45 p.m. Saturday evening.
The statement notes that’s “near U.S. 1/Jefferson Davis Highway, about a mile from MUSC Health Kershaw Medical Center.” You know, by the old Johnson place. They don’t mention that flare guns aren’t supposed to hold shotgun shells.
Arguing about something
Once they arrived at the scene, deputies “determined an altercation between Michael Jermaine Jefferson and his relative led to the shooting.” Fine detective work that was. “There was no word why the men were arguing.”
Whatever it was about, “as the situation escalated, the 43-year-old Camden resident took a flare gun loaded with .410 shotgun ammunition and shot his father-in-law in the arm.” Ouch! The relative was “taken to the emergency room of an area hospital with a non-life threatening injury.” That’s all they’re saying.
The paperwork reveals that Jefferson was charged with “attempted murder, domestic violence high and aggravated nature, and possession of weapon during a violent crime.” The judge had a little fun teasing him about bail.
Well, he told the suspect defendant, on the domestic violence and weapons charges, you can have bail if you come up with $35,000 bond. Before he could think about how to ask his wife for the bail money after shooting her dad with a modified flare gun, the judge mentioned the other charges.
Since attempted murder is something they frown on in that jurisdiction, there won’t be any bail on that charge. He’s been shipped off to the Kershaw County detention center. The next time he will be seen by the public is July 19. Unless he sends up a flare.
They’re already familiar with him around the courthouse. Back in April of 2015, he got tagged driving under the influence. They didn’t prosecute him on an illegal weapon charge.
