Gun lobbyist says blast in home was accident By DAWN WALTON Saturday, September 29 Globe and Mail CALGARY -- The head of Canada's gun lobby, on trial for a firearms offence, told an Alberta provincial court yesterday that an accident, not carelessness, caused a gun to go off in his apartment. "I didn't feel I'd done anything inherently, deliberately wrong. I had an accident," National Firearms Association president Jim Hinter testified. In May, 1999, Mr. Hinter was trying to fix his Czechoslovak-made semi-automatic handgun when it went off, blowing a hole through his wall and sending a bullet into his neighbour's apartment in southwest Calgary. Nobody was hurt. The neighbour, who was sitting on his couch, told the court that dust from the bullet hole fell onto his sleeve.