Fake News: Augusta Man Did NOT Shoot Off Penis Taking Selfies With Gun

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Augusta Man Did NOT Shoot Off Penis Taking Selfies With Gun

Did a 20-year-old from Augusta, Georgia shoot off his penis while trying to take a selfie with a gun? No, that's not true: a fake news website using the logo and layout of Fox News copied a story from two years ago made up by a satire website and changed the location. It is not real.

The story reappeared in an article published by foxnews-us.com (not foxnews.com) on August 28, 2018 titled "Augusta man shoots off his own penis taking selfies with gun" (archived here) which opened:

AUGUSTA, GA - A 20-year-old man is in stable condition Sunday afternoon after the gun he was posing naked with accidentally discharged and shot off his penis.

"We've never had someone shoot off their own junk before," the police said in a statement. "There was a man who shot off his foot, a middle-schooler shot her guinea pig, and even a baby was able to shoot both his parents, but never someone's own junk."

That's almost exactly the same story that appeared in The Valley Report two years ago:

Man shoots off his own penis taking selfies with gun

DAVE WEASEL ST. LOUIS, MO - A 20-year-old man is in stable condition Monday afternoon after the gun he was posing naked with accidentally discharged and shot off his penis. "We've never had someone shoot off their own junk before," the police said in a statement.

Lead Stories debunked that story here:

Man DID NOT Shoot Off His Own 'Junk' While Taking Selfies | Lead Stories

There's a humorous hoax story trending on the webs about a man shooting off his penis while holding a gun and taking "selfies." Although the story comes from a site that's known for satire and complete hilarity, some people aren't aware.

The image used to illustrate the story has been floating around the internet for years:

29 results - TinEye

Compare your search image to your result image. Quickly click the "Switch" button to switch back and forth between the two images and see the differences.

Note that the man is holding a revolver (a gun in which the bullets are kept in a rotating cylinder) along with an elongated magazine typically used in a semi-automatic pistol (and he is holding it backwards).

We wrote about foxnews-us.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

As you can see the site has been on a roll recently copying old hoaxes from other sites and republishing them as new with some details such as the location altered.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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