The wife of Eagles co-founder Randy Meisner, Lana Rae Meisner, died at their home from an accidental shooting from a lifted rifle in California. She was pronounced dead at the scene by Los Angeles Police Department.
After further investigation in the scene, Lana’s death was determined accidental. The gun appears to have gone off as Lana Meisner moved it. Her husband was in another room at the moment and approached when the shot was fired. The former Eagles member was cooperative throughout the investigation, according to a statement issued by the L.A. police.
“Mrs. Meisner was moving a rifle that was stored inside a case in a closet,” the release stated. “As she lifted the rifle in the case, another item within the case shifted and hit the trigger of the rifle causing it to fire and fatally injure Mrs. Meisner,” as read in the report.
The shooting was the second call of the day for the police department in the neighborhood. They had visited the area two hours before the shooting incident for a possibly intoxicated male. The call early came for a woman asking for assistance.
Meisner, who left the Eagles after their 1997 band’s tour, had been married to Lana for nearly 20 years. He participated as the bassist in the band and is best known for co-writing and singing the Eagles’ One of These Nights single “Take It to the Limit”, as reported by the Rolling Stone.
Lana’s accidental death came just a few months after guitarist Glenn Frey, another co-founder of the band, died in New York at 67.
Be aware of guns?
This tragic incident is far from being an isolated one in the United States, where just in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 505 people were killed for gun accidently fired, according to to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
From the gathered data, it was also determined that the gap between the number of men and women victimized by this kind of incidents was actually quite big. Men were far more likely to be accidentally killed by guns than women, by a ratio of 441 to 64, respectively, according to the Washington Post.
Source: Los Angeles Police Department