The price you pay for wooden literalism:

Gregory James Coots, 36, of Middlesboro, faces more than 150 charges. The Associated Press reported that Coots is pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, where a Tennessee woman died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a service in 1995.

The fundamentalist churches that practice snake handling base their belief on:

ESV Mark 16:17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

We see an example of this in Acts when Paul is bitten by a viper:

Acts 28:3 When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 4 When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

I think this demonstrates how the verse is to be interpreted. Paul is not deliberately handling the viper but is protected when it strikes. The snake handling churches are putting God to the test by demonstrating that he will protect them as promised but as the death of the Tennessee woman demonstrates, God will not submit to our tests.