So I’m watching a trauma center reality show on Lifetime last night. It showed the helicopter trauma teams and the ER docs working on various hideous injuries. One was definitely a self-inflicted gunshot to the head with a .22 hollow-point and they couldn’t save that guy. But another was a teenager who had bought a rifle at a gun convention the day before and was described as having shot himself in the face while cleaning it. He was able to speak on the scene and they seemed convinced it was accidental. Sadly he shattered a lot of the bones in his face and will need umpteen surgeries to reconstruct it.
I know there is a GQ answer to my main question, which is physically how would this happen (assuming the description is valid)? Wouldn’t a rifle be too long to be looking down the barrel and still be able to shoot it? Are we talking somehow dropping the gun and having it shoot you in the face?
I put it in IMHO since anecdotes are welcome. A family friend shot his finger while cleaning his handgun – that makes sense (other than the not making sure it wasn’t loaded part).
Remember the trigger typically is around a third of the way or so up from the butt of a rifle and/or shotgun and except for some extreme examples, like maybe an old Kentucky Long Rifle, it would be possible for most any non-child to look down the barrell and reach the trigger at the same time.
Correct. I know of no gun-cleaning procedure that involves pulling the trigger while the bore is pointed at one’s head.
The somewhat complicated disassembly procedure for my .22 pistol involves pulling the trigger several times along the way, but the first step of the process is verifying an empty chamber and all trigger-pulling steps begin with “with the pistol pointed in a safe direction”.
OK, thanks. I still had in my head the scenario of someone trying to shoot themself and having to rig up some complicated contraption involving string and their big toe.
So, probably he was goofing around with his new gun and it went off??
Could be. That and I’d imagine for the uninitiated that there’s a bit of sensory overload when first handling a deadly weapon, maybe something akin to your first handling of a snake or parachute jump but on a lesser scale. You’re aware of the danger but mesmerized at the same time and you do something nonsensical, you commit an error that you knew not to do if only you’d not lost your focus. In short, he brain farted.
My rifle is certainly short enough, would I be dumb enough, to set it on the ground, or even hold it between my knees and aim at my face. I have a .22 bolt action.
But pulling the trigger, now that’s another thing. It’s not that I couldn’t, it’s just that I would have to specifically
a) have the safety off
b) have a round chambered, which means in my case I had to work the bolt action to get a round in there
c) somehow pull the trigger!
The guy was fucking around. It is really really ridiculously easy to never shoot yourself with your gun - never point the fucking thing at yourself!
This should always be the first step (with the safety on) when doing anything with a firearm other than discharging it in a safe direction. Those who ignore this rule are handling their weapon recklessly and the consequences are entirely their own fault.
Yup. The best bit of advice I ever heard about guns is: The gun is always, always loaded. Doesn’t matter if you unloaded it. Doesn’t matter if it’s partially disassembled. Doesn’t matter if there’s a barbershop quartet singing “unloaded times are here again!” The gun is always loaded, and you never point it at something you’d be unwilling to shoot.
I vividly remember being on a suicide call where I guy shot himself in the head with a long .30-60 hunting rifle. It was probably awkward but certainly doable.
In case you are wondering in is quite possible to literally blow your brains out.
Yeah, that’s the standard advice, but it’s pretty much impossible to clean some guns (like the M1 Garand) without putting some part of your anatomy in front of the barrel.
Cleaning a loaded gun? Either the person has sadly tried to commit suicide, or they are a complete moron. Never point a gun at anyone, including yourself.
My assumption would be that the description isn’t valid. It’s much more likely that a teenaged boy who had just bought a gun would show it off to another teenage boy. Second teenage boy swings gun around wildly while making POW! POW! sounds and shoots his best buddy in the face. Second teenage boy runs away.
