Man wounded after storing revolver in his oven

An Ohio man suffered injuries last month after picking what later turned out to be a less than ideal storage spot for his handgun.

Robin L. Garlock, 44, of Warren, was taken for treatment at St. Joseph Warren Hospital after he was hit by fragments from a revolver he had stored in his oven, as reported by the Youngstown Vindicator. Garlock had placed the handgun in the kitchen appliance to keep it out of the reach of visiting children but his girlfriend, without knowing the loaded firearm was secreted in the broiler, turned the oven on and the ammunition eventually started cooking off.

“He was struck twice while trying to get the weapon secured,” Warren Police Detective Wayne Mackey told the Vindicator. “The culprit is a Maytag oven.”

Mackey cautioned that while the story seems far-fetched, police found bullet holes in the stove and the gun– which had two empty shell casings in the seized chamber– had “obviously had been in a fire.”

Mackey went on to tell Raw Story that the story was “a weird one,” going on to say that “In thirty years I have not had anybody shot by an appliance.”

While they don’t mention kitchen appliances that can generate a lot of heat, the National Shooting Sports Foundation recommends against hiding a gun in a closet, drawer or similar location.

“Safe storage is employing precautions and multiple safeguards that provide an additional barrier against unauthorized use,” says the trade group on their Project ChildSafe website.