A little advice this Halloween. When you go dreaming up your child's next costume, you might avoid dressing him or her up as a rodent, lest they be perceived as a pest in need of extermination.
As one 9-year-old learned the hard way. The Pennsylvania girl's skunk costume was obviously so lifelike that she was mistaken for a real skunk and shot.
According to an article in Gawker, the girl was en route to/from a Halloween party when a male relative—allegedly stone-cold sober—spotted her in a black hat with a white tassel trailing down the middle, aimed and fired.
Remains to be seen why the man already happened to be carrying a shotgun. Fortunately the girl was "alert and talking" when she was flown to a Pittsburg hospital. No word yet as to whether the man will be charged with her shooting.
But guns are not the problem, people. Nope, not at all. A cautionary tale to skunks everywhere.
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