An Indiana man allegedly walked into an IHOP, fired a gun, shot himself in the leg, announced "I'm leaking," and then chased a cook through the parking lot with a knife. Then he stole his wife's Buick and hit 110 miles an hour. It was, by every account, a normal Thursday for someone who had been convicted of carrying a handgun without a license and apparently took that as a challenge.
The Breakfast Rush From Hell
According to court documents obtained by the New York Post, 28-year-old Austen Wable charged into an IHOP in Muncie, Indiana, on Thursday and fired his weapon. Then he turned his attention to the cook.
"You f--ked my bitch, bro," he allegedly shouted, shoving the kitchen worker. Witnesses described him as extremely drunk, which, sure, that tracks.
The cook was making pancakes. That is the whole job description. Whatever domestic catastrophe was unfolding in Wable's head, it arrived at a restaurant whose most dangerous item is the hot syrup.
I'm Leaking
Here is where the plan, such as it was, fell apart. Wable allegedly pointed the gun at the cook, and the gun went off. The bullet did not hit the cook. It hit Wable, in the leg.
"I'm leaking," he reportedly shouted, which a witness later repeated to police. Put that on a plaque. Put it on the state flag.
You would think a man who just shot himself in front of a room full of people eating hash browns would reassess the evening. You would be wrong.
Now With Knife
The beef followed the cook into the parking lot, where Wable allegedly chased him with a knife. The court documents say it is unclear whether he carried the blade into the restaurant or retrieved it somewhere along the way.
So to recap: gun, drunk, bleeding, knife, parking lot. This guy was running a one-man festival of bad decisions and he was only getting started.
The cook, to his enormous credit, did not die at an IHOP. We should all aim for that standard.
110 Miles an Hour in the Wife's Buick
Wable then left in his wife's Buick Enclave. Yes, the same wife at the center of this accusation. He took her SUV on his way out of the scene of his own crime, which is a hell of a way to keep the marriage going.
Police chased him. He reportedly hit around 110 mph, and the court documents say the vehicle came close to going airborne. A Buick Enclave is a three-row family crossover. It is designed to carry soccer gear and anxiety. It was not designed to fly.
The chase ended when Wable crashed into a home. When he climbed out, he was stumbling to his right and appeared disoriented, according to the documents. Between the alcohol, the leg wound, and the wreck, that is a fairly modest description of his condition.
The Charges and the Rap Sheet
Wable's leg wound was treated, and he now faces three Level 5 felonies: shooting a firearm into an inhabited building, intimidation with a deadly weapon, and unlawful carrying of a handgun. A single Level 5 felony carries a maximum of six years in prison.
That last charge is the one that should make you pause. Wable was previously convicted in 2021 of carrying a gun without a license. So he had already been through the system over this exact thing, and here he was again, armed, in public, drunk, at a pancake restaurant.
And remember, the shooting-into-an-inhabited-building charge exists because he fired a gun in a room full of breakfast customers. The people in that IHOP wanted eggs. They got a ballistics event.
The Dingo Take
Who benefits from a country that keeps handing loaded guns to people like this? The firearms industry, mostly. Every drunk, humiliated, bleeding man who turns a restaurant into a crime scene is a rounding error in a business model that depends on guns being everywhere, all the time, in every hand, no matter how many of those hands belong to someone who already got caught once.
Wable had a prior conviction for carrying a gun without a license. That did not stop him from showing up at an IHOP with one. It did not stop him from firing it indoors, and it did not stop him from shooting himself. What stopped him was a house.
Nobody needs a policy paper to see the problem here. A man was angry, drunk, and armed, and a pancake cook nearly paid for it with his life. The cook survived because the gun was as incompetent as its owner. That is not a safety system. That is luck, and luck is a terrible thing to build a country on.
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