Accidental discharge

[RoyGBiv]

Hey Weg.. Thanks for sharing.!!
Never easy to come out with something like that in a forum like this. Good on you.

Very glad nobody got hurt. A good lesson/reminder for all of us.

[clarionite]

I've had one accidental discharge in my life. I was at my dad's place one summer, which had a 5 acre pond. I found a huge cotton mouth outside the back door. I went in to grab one of his .22 rifles (every gun he owns is stored loaded) and was walking through the front room with the rifle pointed at the floor and it went off. I was shocked. My finger wasn't on the trigger. Come to find out it had some worn parts that allowed it to fire when jarred. The Gunsmith fixed it for him a few days later.

[Weg]

Yeah, I would have to agree that it was a negligent discharge... I handed him a loaded gun and said it was unloaded, he assumed it to be true and did not verify. That being said,I am 42 , my dad is 69, I was raised around guns all my life... by him. In fact I cut my teeth on the very gun involved, anyhow, my point is nothing like this had ever happened to either of us. It only takes one mistake for things to go bad.

[McKnife]

Aside from the Negligent Discharge... I've heard it's very bad to dry-fire rimfire revolvers!

[Jasonw560]

Weg, I feel your pain.

You can call it an AD or ND, or as my wife calls it, " YOU SHOT A HOLE IN THE WAL!!!"

From now on, I will always be dilligent.

[snatchel]

I had a similar discharge once, and it was with a .44 magnum.........indoors.........right next to my left ear.

It was negligence, not an accident. Your's was too.

Those hurt. I haven't had an ND or an AD yet, but I was driving a humvee in Iraq, going through the process of clearing weapons before coming back onto base when my gunner had an ND. He cleared the .50, or so he thought. I took my headset off and was in the process of taking flak jacket, etc off when he "dry fired" 2 rounds into the embankment. Burst my right eardrum, and one of the hot expended shells fell between my collar and my neck, and rolled all the way down to by beltline taking sheets of my skin with it. I now have 68% hearing loss in my right ear, and a 4 inch wide scar on my back from my neck to my booty. On a positive note, my wife says my rhodesian ridgeback and I have matching backs :)

[warhorse10_9]

I personally have never had an AD or an ND either, but have had one come very close to ending my life.

I was bird hunting with one of my good friends, after a bagging a few birds in one area we decided to move to another so we headed back to the truck. When we got back to the truck we began to unload our shotguns. While unloading my friend's goes off. He was holding it pointed up at an angle that lets just say was not the safest. Had the gun been tilted just a few degrees down and to the left, I wouldn't be typing this as that's where my head was. I was standing slightly forward and to the left of him (he is a southpaw) and was facing away. At some point when he was unloading he put his finger on the trigger and the gun to fired. My ears didn't stop ringing for some time.

My friend was an ex-police officer so even those who have extensive experience can have an ND.

[schufflerbot]

wow - glad this wasn't a post made after a hospital trip!

people laugh at me when i check and recheck a weapon before handing it over. i just wink at them.

[terryg]

people laugh at me when i check and recheck a weapon before handing it over

Yep, me too. I usually check the chamber, flip it over to check for empty mag well, the check the chamber again ...

[Teamless]

when i check and recheck a weapon before handing it over

Absolutely!
I will go to The Arms Room or Academy,
They will check it and hand it to me, breech open normally, and I will check it again, every time, no exceptions.
When I take newbies to a range, we go over the 4 rules, repeatedly, and I will then pull out an empty weapon - empty as I cleared it already, and recheck it and hand it to them, and ask them, did you see me check the weapon, and they will all say "yes" and I say good, check it yourself, every time, no matter who hands it to you.

[johnson0317]

My biggest beef is when I am at the shooting range, or the gun shop, and these guys keep swinging the gun around while checking it out. I can be three feet away and they will sweep my abdomen with it, or even just leave it pointed at me while they look at it. I have actually, if in the proper mood (annoyed), gently pushed the barrel to a safe direction. The really strange thing is that none of them has ever even said anything about me doing it. They don't apologize, they don't get bent, they just go on looking at it.

RJ

[LedJedi]

hey WEG, thanks for sharing this. Always good when reminders like this pop up.

And glad to see you can look at the situation as an opportunity to learn.

Someone on this very forum once said something that has stuck with me for years.

"Loaded guns don't bother me. UNLOADED guns scare the out of me."

I have since seen the wisdom in that line of thought. Every gun I have is always loaded unless i'm 1) reloading it or 2) working on it. There has never been a moment of doubt in my house since I started doing that.

[ScottDLS]

Everyone is arguing semantics. Let's look at definitions of the three types of discharges mentioned:

Accidental (Accident): an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap

Unintended: not purposed; not designed; not intentional: an unintended snub.

Negligent (Neglect): to pay no attention or too little attention to; disregard or slight

...

My opinion...a "Negligent Discharge" is also properly called an "Accidental Discharge"... Unless you intended it to happen, it's an accident, even if you were negligent. So every use of the term AD doesn't necessarily require the self appointed safety police descending (rhetorically) upon the poster decreeing that an AD wasn't an AD. It may also have been a ND, but the point is more to analyze the circumstances and suggest ways to avoid a similar accident from happening in the future.

Now excuse me while I go buy a big assault clip that holds 31 bullets for my Glock 17 automatic weapon....

[Keith B]

Everyone is arguing semantics. Let's look at definitions of the three types of discharges mentioned:

Accidental (Accident): an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap

Unintended: not purposed; not designed; not intentional: an unintended snub.

Negligent (Neglect): to pay no attention or too little attention to; disregard or slight

...

My opinion...a "Negligent Discharge" is also properly called an "Accidental Discharge"... Unless you intended it to happen, it's an accident, even if you were negligent. So every use of the term AD doesn't necessarily require the self appointed safety police descending (rhetorically) upon the poster decreeing that an AD wasn't an AD. It may also have been a ND, but the point is more to analyze the circumstances and suggest ways to avoid a similar accident from happening in the future.

Now excuse me while I go buy a big assault clip that holds 31 bullets for my Glock 17 automatic weapon....

Like I said, semantics. The majority of accidents are caused by negligence or inattention to detail. As a pilot, we are taught about the accident error chain. That is if you post analyze an accident, that you will find multiple errors (the links) that put together form a chain (the accident.) The chain can be as short as two links or as long as it takes to lead to the accident. Break any one of those links and the accident never happens.

In this case, there were only two main links; Link one was Weg failing to find that the gun was loaded before handing it to his Dad, and link two was Dad failing to double-check it before dry firing. Because his Dad used had used another safety rule and kept the gun pointed in a safe direction, luckily there was no major damage done by the discharge.

So, call it what you want as they all fit; An unintentional or accidental firing of the gun due to negligence.

[speedsix]

...I ALWAYS open the action of any weapon handed to me and check it...I NEVER hand anyone a weapon with the action closed...I was in a squad car one night when a veteran officer accepted a M19 straight from a rookie's holster...and squeezed the trigger...(trigger was very smooth)...so was the crease on his knee...so were the edges of the hole through the floorboard...you can't be too careful...that was negligence on both our parts...it could have crippled him for life...I also insist that anyone I hand an opened gun to check it themselves...they usually say "Well, you checked it"...not good enough...