New Father Killed By Stray Bullet While Welcoming Newborn Home

Justin Ayers is dead after a neighbor accidentally shot a bullet into Ayers’ home earlier this week. What’s even more tragic is that Ayers and his wife were in the process of welcoming their three-day-old baby home when he was fatally shot.

The shooter was Ayers’ next door neighbor, 62-year-old Charles Edward Shisler, who did probably the stupidest thing you can do as a gun owner: He picked his gun up by the trigger causing it to shoot through the wall and hit Ayers in the head. Shisler’s defense? He didn’t think the gun would shoot.

“”The damn gun doesn’t usually shoot,” Shisler’s arrest report quoted him as saying. “You have to squeeze the hell out of the trigger to shoot it.”

Unfortunately, “the hell” is not a unit of measurement and now a man is dead due to the fact that Shisler was irresponsible with a known working (if badly) and loaded weapon. Shisler was not only at almost the legal alcohol limit when he was tested four hours later, but apparently tried to hide the gun under a mattress when he realized what he had done. When the police arrived, they found him uncooperative and belligerent according to The Raw Story.

Investigators say that the bullet had a one in infinity chance of hitting Ayers and killing him. And yet it happened. Now Ayers, who was a guitar teacher and a musician is dead due to his neighbor’s negligence. Investigators are treating both homes as crime scenes, but the death is thought to be purely accidental due to the fact that the neighbors had never had an acrimonious relationship.

Shilser has been charged with “manslaughter and felon in possession of a firearm.” He has a previous felony conviction for carrying a concealed weapon in 2006. Due to his felony conviction Shisler should have never had a gun in the first place, as Florida prohibits felons from owning firearms.