This gun lesson skipped directly to the consequences

A 21-year-old Nebraska man shot himself in the leg while filming a firearms demonstration outside a Lincoln Scheels store on Thursday.

A 21-year-old Nebraska man set out to film an instructional gun video and accidentally produced a much more persuasive one. Police say the newly purchased 9mm discharged as he demonstrated how to rack it, sending a bullet through his leg and severing his femoral artery.

The self-shooting happened Thursday in the parking lot of a Scheels store in Lincoln. Just after the man bought the 9mm pistol. Police said his girlfriend was recording as he demonstrated how to rack it. The gun discharged into his leg, severing the femoral artery. First responders applied a tourniquet before taking him to a hospital.

"I looked over and the two doors on the left side of the car were open and there was a big pile of blood beside the driver's car door," the witness said. "So I figured I didn't know what happened, but it didn't look like it was very good."

Police have not announced any charges, and the incident remains under investigation.

Firearms tutorials generally begin with the assumption that the instructor knows more than the audience. This one ended with emergency responders demonstrating the most important skill of the afternoon: stopping catastrophic bleeding.

He did successfully create an instructional video.