WTF?

Holy mother of lambda that's so amazingly bizarre. It's such an astounding series of events I'd wanna call it fate but I don't know how true fatalism is.

if a dude fired a shotgun it dont matter if you are in midair or the circumstances its murder, dumb article

This is an urban legend you stupid AFRICAN AMERICANS.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/opus.asp Kano is correct!

that is such a jumbled load of shit it is retarded.

That's retarded, kinda like the one i sneaked into the sperm bank.

Well thank you Kano. My first time reading it, and it was posted by someone I know on Facebook who just happens to be ridiculously smart. Normally that kind of smart doesn't need questioning, but I'll let him know it's an urban legend. Still, it's pretty goddamn funny.

Fake or not it still poses the question, murder or suicide in that situation?

who's to say he didnt rig a shotgun to blast him off the edge and pre-pay someone to come collect the weapon after.

Maybe he was trying to do them jumps you do in Quake? meh

MUUUUUUUUUUURDER!

Or more accurately, homicide. The hypothetical jumper's intentions are irrelevant in the legal context, and other factors would determine whether the shooter could be charged with various degrees of murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, etc. But it might be tough to get a jury to convict with this situation.

At least that's my guess!

There was an internet in 1994?

I doubt something like this would ever go to trial though. There are too many outlying factors for there to be any kind of hope of conviction. Could you try and attempt to set a precedent sure, would it be worth your time? Probably not because it would be highly unlikely that a situation like this would arise again.

The internet, beyond message boards and email has been around for a long-ass time.

The internet is a collection of strings and Mexicans holding them together.

You're right that it would depend on how zealous the prosecutor is and how likely they thought it was the jury would convict (based on how likable the shooter is, etc etc). But I don't think it's crazy to think a prosecutor would want to send the message that you shouldn't resolve domestic disputes by threatening people with shotguns, particularly not without making sure they're unloaded and the safety is on and what not (but really, at all).

IMO the deductions in the story are correctly determined. Legally, it's a suicide, but the husband ought to have been brought up on something regardless.

they match most of the time. This is a case of suicide. Regardless of what occured in the house, the man would have died, the shotgun was accidentlaly loaded by the deceased in question so it is his fault for his own death, not the old man who was wavihng the shotgun at his wife. If the old man had loaded the gun himself it would be his fault for it and considered second degree murder or murder without intent, which would then be lowered to manslaughter at trial.

Well technically, he wouldn't have died because of the safety netting. But I don't think that's relevant either. The definitions of various kinds of homicide are in state law; what state are you thinking of that would not allow someone who waves a shotgun around without making sure its unloaded to be charged with some form of homicide?

Just to use TX as an example, the shooter could be charged with one of two, if not three, kinds of homicide:
19.02(b)(3) - Murder can be charged when someone commits a felony and happens to cause death during the commission (even if unintended). This is the farthest stretch, but if threatening your wife with a shotgun (unloaded or not) is a felony (i.e. assault) then it could apply. The more likely options are:
19.04 - Manslaughter, when someone "recklessly causes the death of an individual."
19.05 - Criminally negligent homicide, when someone "causes the death of an individual by criminal negligence."

My point is that the guy wanted to commit suicide, and in common parlance you could say he did...but that doesn't change the legal fact that the shooter is guilty of some kind of homicide. I'm not a gun safety expert, but I know there are people here who take it pretty seriously; there's a reason you don't wave guns at people, particularly without checking if they're loaded, and particularly without having the safety activated. It doesn't matter that he didn't load it himself, that's still reckless/negligent conduct. Note: the story says he did intentionally pull the trigger, despite thinking it was unloaded.

Would a jury convict? That's a whole 'nother story, and depends on a bunch of things like how likable the shooter is, whether he has a history of violent confrontations, and whether the prosecutor can convince jurors that waving a shotgun around and pulling the trigger is not a way to resolve domestic disputes. Still, a sympathetic jury doesn't change whether or not he actually violated the law.