How do people manage to shoot themselves whilst cleaning firearms?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The very first Australian casualty in Iraq hasn’t been caused by Iraqi insurgents, or landmines, or even a helicopter/vehicle crash, but by the soldier accidentally shooting himself in the head whilst cleaning his firearm.

I’ve been a gun owner, collector, and shooter for many years, and yet I cannot think of a situation in which it’s necessary to have ammunition in your gun to clean it.

More importantly, I’m at a loss to think of how he managed to accidentally shoot himself in the head with his firearm- an AUSTEYR Assault Rifle might be reasonably compact, but it’s not something you can point at your head and fire without making an effort and being aware the gun’s pointed at your head.

Same thing goes for the Browning Hi-Power, and even with a Sniper Rifle (Not sure what the ADF are using these days- a Remington 700 or a Parker-Hale of some kind, I suspect), you’d have to have the bolt closed on a live round while you’re cleaning the gun- which strikes me as being dangerously negligent, to say the least.

I can understand field-stripping and cleaning a gun, then loading it (they are in a warzone, after all), and having the gun discharge accidentally (worn spring etc), and hitting someone else- or even yourself, in the leg or arm, perhaps- but shooting yourself in the head whilst cleaning a gun just seems to be well, either incredibly bad luck (and the sort of thing that wouldn’t be out of place in a Coen Brothers film), an act that would nominate one for the Darwin Awards, or else… not an accident, if you follow me.

I don’t want to Pit this guy, as I don’t know the full circumstances surrounding his death, and I’ve never been in the military, but I will ask this:

How the hell do you “Accidentally” shoot yourself in the head whilst cleaning a firearm???

As a follow-up question, why do there seem to be so many accidents involving people cleaning guns? Generally it’s a bit hard to clean a gun if there’s a magazine full of bullets in it, in my experience, yet I often read news storys (admittedly not always from 100% reliable sources, but still) about people managing to shoot themselves whilst cleaning guns- usually not fatally, but it’s still enough to make you wonder, IMO…

2

Well, they can’t. However it’s possible to shoot oneself accidently before or after the cleaning operation if you fool around with the gun loaded. And on TV just a couple nights ago there was a news report about the slowly increasing suicide rate in Iraq forces.

We had two gun accidents with souvenier guns in my squadron after the war in Europe ended. In one the guy shot himself in the calf, probably practicing fast draw. I was the OD the night the other one happened. We heard a shot from down in the squadron area. I told the Sgt. of the Guard to find the guy and bring him to the orderly room, assuming he was still mobile.

In a short while back the Sgt. came with a sheepish GI. I asked him about the shot and he answered that he was “cleaning my gun.” So I said, “With a round in it?”

“Well, ah, er, umm, …”

So I had him leave the gun and I wrote out a report for the Squadron Cdr. The next day all souvenier guns in the squadron area were collected. They were kept until the owner went back to the US at which time they were returned with the firing pin removed.

3

Oh, it happens all the time. Some idiot chambers his weapon when on sentry duty (or just for the hell of it), forgets he did it, dosen’t clear the weapon when he removes the magazine, and ends up walking around all day with a live round in the barrel. Considering how an M-16 can go off accidentally if you bang it too hard on the stock, sooner or later that bullet is going to go out the wrong end.

A buddy of mine once witnessed something like this - actually caused it, sort of. He was training a bunch of “General-Military” (meaning “useless”) recruits, and one brain donor discharged a bullet from a supposedly unloaded weapon when presenting arms. Unslung his rifle, slammed the stock to the ground and blew his index finger off.

4

Not sure where the debate is. Off to IMHO.

5

Since the chamber, the barrel, and any other place that a round might be (besides the magazine) in the gun is subject to cleaning, I’d say that people that are shot “while cleaning the gun” were actually just about to clean the gun.

How is the first step of field stripping a gun not clearing the chamber?

6

Twice here in Iraq, people on projects I have worked on have been shot by guards “cleaning” their weapons. In both cases, the guy was playing with it and shot someone else.

An army officer told me that they had had some suicides that they classified as gun cleaning accidents to make it easier on the family back home. I’m not saying it was the case with the incident in the OP.

7

From what I have heard from my friends in the Army, it usually happened when soldiers ignore safety procedure, such as not making sure the rfile is check cleared before attempting to clean it (i.e, cleaning a loaded weapon).

There was this really morbid story when during an execrise, a machine-gun stalled and IA. It was late in the middle of the night as the execrise was ending, and just wanting to end it quickly, they just brought the machine gun back to camp, with the intend of cleaning it tomorrow.

It seemed they forgot about it, and a soldier died while trying to strip-clean the machine gun. Of course, heads did roll afterwards…

8

What is “strip-clean”

There is NO excuse for accidentally shooting yourself while cleaning a weapon. You can’t clean a weapon if it is loaded.

These guys carry around loaded weapons all day long. I suspect that after a while, comman safety measures become overlooked.

But shot while cleaning it? Shot while screwing around with it perhaps, but the very very first thing you do before you clean a weapon is make sure its unloaded. Sort of like you have to take the hubcap off to change a tire.

9

Strip clean, I believe, refers to the process in which all the components of the rifle/gun, are removed, and each of them cleaned.

Of course, one shalln’t clean a loaded weapon, but there could be times when someone forgot that he loaded a round in the chamber, and didn’t eject it, and tried to clean it.

By right that shalln’t happen, but might if the safety procedure were skipped or were sloppy.

10

The thing is, to clean a gun you have to open the bolt/breech/slide/cylinder so you can clean the internal areas/disassemble the gun… so there’s absolutely no excuse for shooting yourself whilst cleaning the gun, IMHO.

11

The situation is simple.

“I think I’m going to clean my gun.” Picks it up, accidentally drops it, bullet in chamber goes off.

In other words, it wasn’t while actually cleaning the gun; it was when preparing to clean it.

Or, “Good. The gun’s clean. Let’s test fire it.” Puts ammunition in chamber, drops gun, goes off.

12

Third example:

“The gun’s empty. Toss it to me, Joe.” <bang> “Ouch! Oops. Joe, say I was cleaning it so I won’t look like such an idiot.”

13

Though I’m unable to muster a cite, I’ve heard that it’s actually quite rare for a dropped firearm to fire (presuming it’s well-made, as a service rifle would certainly be).

I seem to recall a court case from perhaps 12 years ago in which this claim was made by a defendant. The prosecution commissioned a test in which an example of the gun in question was dropped from a respectable height something like 4000 times without discharging.

14

It depends on the weapon - some are more prone to discharges than others. Bear in mind, also, that while military weapons are well made, they can stay in service for as long as several decades, going through a lot of wear and tear along the way.

15

I was a cop for eight years, and investigated more than a few “accidental” shootings, some fatal, most not. In most cases of non-fatal shootings it turned out to be some one was clowning around and somebody got hurt and a story got cooked up to cover the idiocy. In the fatal cases, every sign was there that it was suicide, but things were “Adjusted” before police got there save family face, or because of insurance reasons.
To kill yourself accidentally with a hand gun you would have to be stupid. To accidentally kill your self with a long gun you would have to be exceptionally stupid.

Just my opinion.

16

I suspect a lot of “died while cleaning his gun” deaths are actually suicides.

Accidental deaths are covered by insurance policies, suicides are not. I can easily imagine a friendly medical examiner ruling a death “accidental while cleaning gun” to give surviving family members an assist on insurance claims.

17

Perhaps. But my point was that the gun went off in some manner, for some reason, at the start of (or after the end of) the cleaning process, so was considered cleaning the weapon when the report was made.

18

I agree.

Hmm… So what evidence would be required to prove it wasn’t an accident? This might sound bad, but if it wasn’t really an intended suicide, it certainly was a darwinian suicide, assuming the gun wasn’t inspected for ammunition prior to cleaning.

19

The story in today’s Courier-Mail says the firearm involved was a handgun… which confirms my :dubious: to the “Accidental” story.

Dad pointed out, however, that it’s possible the guy may have been drunk and messing around (the ADF has a massive alcohol problem, despite what they like to tell people). Even so, there’s still no way this was a “gun cleaning accident”…

20

Not sure where you got all those guns models from, but the radio this morning said it was a 9mm Glock pistol.

Like some others here implied, my first thought was suicide. The only factor against that is there were two others in the room at the same time, which might tilt the odds towards fooling around. But a highly trained sniper acccidentally shoots himself in the head while cleaning his handgun? IMO clearly a “spare the relatives” cover story. We’ll only know for sure if those two speak out, although the story this morning claimed they didn’t see anything.