A local TV news reporter and three people queuing to buy PlayStation 3s were hit in a drive-by shooting in the Lexington, Kentucky, U.S-of-A branch of Best Buy last night.

The three PS3 ‘campers’ were being interviewed by WKYT’s 27 Newsfirst reporter, Elizabeth Dorsett, when they were hit by a hail of… BB gun pellets.

Police are investigating the shooting and are now on round-the-clock protection duties for the remaining campers until the store opens tomorrow morning.

This constrasts with the apparent policy in California, as reported by SPOnG’s man in the States, who told us that “The police kicked the guys out of the Burbank line after store employees asking them to leave failed. This is after they'd been there for three days!”

This will of course be grist to the mill of the conservative right as exemplified by U.S. attorney Jack Thompson. Sadly, it will be far too easy to pin this event on GTA^*-addled kids, incapable of differentiating between real and fictional violence.

See the video coverage of the four being pelted with BB pellets, as reporter Elizabeth Dorsett is interviewing someone in the line, at WKYT News.

SPOnG will bring you more tales from the PS3 front line in the States as and when it breaks.

^*Grand Theft Auto IV is due to hit in October 2007.