A Mother's Tragic Loss of Her 17-yo Son - A Gun Accident

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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This is neither mundane nor pointless. It’s tragic, utterly, crushingly tragic. My heart aches for my friend Nancy and I cannot imagine her despairing grief. Her 17-yo son Kevin died suddenly and accidentally. It was a gun accident.

Here’s what happened -

Details are sketchy and this isn’t the kind of thing where you ask the parents for more details, but what I understand was that Irv, Kevin’s father, took Kevin to a local pistol range to teach him how to shoot. It was Kevin’s first time shooting.

Somehow, some way, Kevin was handling the pistol, it discharged, and the bullet hit Kevin in the head.

9-1-1… paramedics… hospital… Kevin was declared brain dead a few hours later. The docs did what they could. Kevin’s organs were donated. The funeral is tomorrow.

What complicates this a little is that Irv and Nancy are divorced, and the divorce was contentious. Things got ugly, as some divorces do, and while the divorce is final, things between Nancy and Irv were not good before the accident. Since the accident, it took a long time, several days, before Nancy could even talk to Irv.

Nancy is my exwife’s best friend. Nancy, my exwife and I were all good friends several years ago. Irv has always been distant, a little weird. Whatever. Nancy was in love, she was happy, that’s what mattered back then.

At the hospital, my exwife overheard Irv telling a nurse that he was not right there when it happened. Does this mean Irv was 4 feet away from Kevin? Or 14 feet away? Had he left the firing line to go buy more ammo? I don’t know what “not right there” means, exactly. However I can surmise “not right there” means Irv was not 4 inches to the left of a brand-new shooter with his hands at the ready to quickly grab the gun if the muzzle were to sweep to an unsafe direction - this can happen quickly, so very quickly with a pistol and a new and naive shooter. (Heck, it has happened to senior Marines who haven’t seen combat. I’ve seen it and have prevented a shooting accident when as the range safety officer taking my unit through our annual rifle and pistol qual. But that’s another story.)

The gun range has video cameras. The police investigated and determined it was an accident. I haven’t talked to the police, nor to the range staff.

I’m guessing they were shooting semis and not revolvers. Maybe it was a Glock, which only has a trigger safety. I’m not a big fan of Glocks but I know many are. Someday I would want one, there are a few guns on my wish list, but for now I don’t have one. But with how quickly this happened it was likely a semi, single-action (or DA/SA, yes).

I am mad at Irv. Unfairly or no, and if and only if the shooting was accidental, I blame Irv for this accident. Damn you, Irv. Fuck you, Irv. I blame you Irv because as a shooter, trainer and coach I know there are things you do to greatly reduce the likelihood of a shooting accident. You failed, miserably. Never mind that you lost your son. I don’t know if you loved your son, if you cherished your son, or if your animosity towards Nancy played any part, however small, in this accident.

Nancy cherished her son. Nancy has an older daughter. Now Nancy has just her daughter, and the memories of a son whose life was too short.

I ache for Nancy’s loss, and for the grief of my exwife and my kids (Nancy is their Godmother) and the families. I pray for them.

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I’m so very sad for all involved.

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Thanks Lorene. I know I’m being very harsh on Irv, I was ranting there.

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Assume for a minute that Irv *was *a responsible shooter and parent. Imagine how he feels. Irv lost a child exactly as much as Nancy did. No more, no less. And Irv had some hand in it. He’s going to be playing the “If only …” tape in his head for the rest of his life.

The comment “I wasn’t right there” could easily be nothing more than “I just wasn’t fast enough to prevent it”. Even somebody hovering right over the kid might not have been quick enough, depending on what amateur or silly or foolish move the kid made.

Being a skilled shooter is different from being a skilled shooter-trainer. And Irv may not even have been a very skilled or very safe shooter.

OTOH, Irv might well have been stupidly irresponsible on up to criminally negligent.

You certainly know Irv a lot better than anyone else here does. It sounds like you don’t really know from other experience where Irv was on the gun safety / sanity /experience spectrum. But neither you nor I nor any other Dopers were there.

It seems to me that moral judgment firstly requires access to facts. Getting morally outraged over your or any else’s guesswork about what happened is little more than recreational outrage.

My heart goes out to all concerned. People talk about “senseless tragedy” as if there was such a thing as a “sensible tragedy”. This was a tragedy.

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And that’s why, even though I completely support the right to have one, I don’t have a gun.

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I would never want to be around anybody who would grab the muzzle of a pistol/revolver that somebody else is holding.

Also, I suspect that the gun discharged when the trigger got pulled, as is often the case. You should take it easier on Irv. He’s lost a son, and his loss is just as tragic as the mother’s.

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I dunno… I’ve never trained anyone who has never handled a firearm before. It seems to me you start out with an unloaded firearm and an empty magazine and teach them how to safely handle and operate it first before you head to a firing range.

He shot himself in the head. Maybe he wasn’t prepared for the combination of recoil and single action for the second round? The berets I knew said that when they were training the Hmongs and Montagnards on M-60s, they’d start them out with 6 round belts.

But it’s a tragedy. There’s nothing the ex-wife or the law can say or do to the Dad that can make him feel any worse than he does already.

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That sucks, Bullitt. Sorry to hear it.

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Back when I was a regular shooter I had a Detonics Mk VI in .45ACP. Essentially a chopped-down M1911 clone in stainless steel. 3.5" barrel with a 5 round clip. Used as a belly gun with one-shot-to-stop power. This was before the advent of .40 S&W, DA/SA autos, and all the rest of the modern compact hand cannons. Needless to say, it had massive muzzle flash and fierce recoil.

Due to how the tolerances added up on some internal parts (plus some amateur trigger and sear work :)), the thing had a habit of double- and very occasionally triple-tapping on its own. And it had an amazing cyclic rate of fire.

Even as an experienced shooter knowing an auto double-tap was probable, it was very hard to keep the second shot below about 45 degrees elevation. I punched a few holes in the sun roof over the range station, so we have witness marks to the elevation angle.

Pretty quickly I replaced the suspect parts with factory new ones. The engineer I talked to said I wasn’t the first guy to have that problem. But it was fun :):eek: while it lasted.

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So sad for everyone. I’m thinking Kevin’s sister is also going to be wondering “What if?” the rest of her life.

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The rules of safe gun handling are identical regardless of action type, caliber, make, or model. The rules were broken by the person holding the gun. If those rules were not properly conveyed, then yes I would blame the father. If not then the only person with final control is the one with the gun in their hand.

Never ever try to grab a gun from someone unless you are A: fighting for your life or B: know EXACTLY what you are doing. Most peoples first reaction will be to pull back, which if their finger is anywhere near the trigger is a lovely formula for discharging said gun at an unplanned time, in an unplanned direction.

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And that’s why i’m for accredited instruction. Why should marines and FBI agents get safer instruction than my 12-year old daughter?

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You would if the new shooter’s gun jammed and they turned it sideways to look at what went wrong, and you were on the firing line at another lane where the muzzle was pointing. You might not even know this happened because each shooter’s lane, in some ranges, has a wall between shooters.

Yes that is what I do. In my house, nowhere near the range, and with no ammo at all nearby. Only snap caps.

Agree, definitely. I’m not saying any admonishing word to Irv, or even anything other than extending my condolences to him.

Thanks, bobot.

Certainly. But I’m talking only about new shooters I have coached, so they should already have indexed their trigger finger.

It’s more likely for a new shooter to react inappropriately (unsafely) when there’s a jam or misfeed of some sort than when everything is operating as expected. Well that also applies to people who have shot before, and I imagine it also applies to seasoned shooters as well. Makes sense that it does apply, right?

There are variations in everything. In one particular state last year the training I received for that state’s CCW license was pathetic. I won’t name the city or the state but CCW instructors have to be trained. I’ve received excellent training for CCW in some states, and crappy training in that one state.

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The one and only time I fired a gun (a revolver as it happened), I was damned certain the gun was pointing at the target before my finger went anywhere near the trigger. Even so, I was kind of scared and have never held a gun since. Nor would I want to. I was pretty close to the target too.