They ran a YouTube channel. He convinced his girlfriend to shoot him with a pistol while he held a thick book in front of himself, expecting the book to stop the bullet. The book did not stop the bullet, and he died from the gunshot wound. She pled guilty to manslaughter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/youtube-shooting-minne...

WTF.

This is strikingly familiar to something that happened to me as a kid, albeit maybe an order of magnitude or two less serious.

My step mom wanted to feel the impact of my high powered paintball gun. So she held up a cardboard pizza pox and asked me to shoot her.

I shot a few rounds which shred through the box and ended up cutting her stomach.

When it happened: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40438207

Now in jail: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43410816

She got a pretty short sentence, to be served in multiple short periods of incarceration. I suppose so she isn't away from the kids very long at a time.

I think they took pity on her, as it was the guy's idea, he assured her it would be safe, she had one kid, and had another one on the way at the time of the incident.

Of course, if she were black she'd probably be in for life.