Elderly man accidentally shoots wife at Tennessee church during talk about church shooting

A Tennessee man accidentally shot himself and his wife at church during a discussion about the recent massacre at a Texas church.

Elder members of First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains were meeting Thursday afternoon to eat a Thanksgiving dinner when the mass shooting came up, and one of them asked if anyone brought their gun to church, reported WATE-TV.

Police said a man in his 80s pulled out a .380 caliber Ruger handgun and boasted, "I carry my handgun everywhere.

The man removed the magazine, cleared the chamber and showed the weapon to some other men, then put the magazine back in, evidently loaded a round into the chamber and returned the gun to his holster, police said.

Someone else walked up and asked to see the gun, police said, and the man took out the weapon again.

He pulled it back out and said, 'With this loaded indicator, I can tell that it’s not loaded,'" according to Police Chief Russ Parks.

He then pulled the trigger, apparently forgetting he had put a round in the chamber.

The gun was lying on its side on a table, and the bullet sliced the man's palm and entered the left side of his wife's abdomen and exited the right.

Both of them were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

No charges will be filed in the shooting, police said.