Archy, I think you better back that one up. That's too difficult to believe.
Well, I can expound a bit, at least. It was in the early 1970s, when a circus was performing in Ohio. One of the spectators in the crowd was drunk and with a female companion, whom he decided to impress by shooting an elephant in the behind with his little pocket .22, a double-barrelled derringer, of which a couple of types are possible, but was most likely a rimfire copy of the old Remington over-and-under. Unfortunately, the bull turned and faced the shooter, and the 29-grain short bullet went up the beast's nasal cavity, resulting in a death within around a half minute. There was a clown bank robbery skit with blank gunfire and a backfiring clown getaway car going on at the time, and the rube figured he could get away with the pop of a single shot from his hideout gun; he didn't, and the enraged animal handler and other show workers gave him a pretty thorough beating in the process of taking him into custory and disarming him *for the safety of the crowd,* of course!
If I recall correctly, the show was the old Hoxie Brothers circus, later bought out and folded into the Carson and Barnes operation. I first heard details of the story from Jo Ann Stewart of Bloomington, Indiana, an exotic animal supplier who had supplied Barnum and Bailey show cat act superstar Gunther Gabel-Williams with his parrot and a big cat or two; Williams son worked bull elephants. I ran the story past gunwriter Major George Nonte, and he checked out some of the details and got a couple of the written reports of the matter, which resulted in no criminal prosecution, though a couple of real obvious charges like reckless endangerment come to mind. But the drunk was presented with a bill for his trophy safari, and was in a position to pay it and did so, beating any criminal rap. George passed away in 1978, so it would have been a year or two before that when it took place, possibly three. I'll see if I can track anything more about the circumstances and in which city it happened down, and fill in a few more blanks if I can. But kids, please don't try this at home....
-archy-/-
