# Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729 "2013-01-29T19:01:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 273
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5441 "2015-08-06T21:57:01Z")
If the hammer was fully cocked and if the gun was loosely packed and had a hair-trigger, it could go off if the package was dropped or slammed down on a table… note my only-partly-tongue-in-cheek reference to rough handling of parcels by postal workers in the earlier post. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5442 "2015-08-06T22:07:58Z")
But the claim was the gun went off while the package was being held. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5443 "2015-08-06T22:22:14Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > But the claim was the gun went off while the package was being held. Well, you wouldn’t expect a postal worker to actually _own up_ to handling a package roughly would you;)… incident reports can be subtly worded to protect the not-quite-innocent. Heck I’ve done it myself. Or, as you say someone may have opened the package and tried to let the hammer down. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5444 "2015-08-06T22:27:56Z")
I have a Ruger Blackhawk Vaquero. If the gun had been shipped loaded and cocked, the trigger would still have had to be depressed to fire the gun. That model uses a trigger bock firing mechanism. That is to say, when the trigger is depressed it not only releases the hammer, it raises a piece of metal between the hammer and firing pin. That piece of metal transfers the hammer blow to the firing pin. If the hammer is, somehow, forced to fall without the trigger depressed, the gun will not fire because the hammer cannot direcly strike the firing pin. It seems likely to me that the guy was playing with the gun. This does not excuse shipping a loaded weapon. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5445 "2015-08-07T00:24:02Z")
Then the reporting seems to be inaccurate (not surprising) or he rewrapped it after it fired and before the police examined it. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5446 "2015-08-07T01:58:39Z")
The package went thousands of miles without incident but then the gun fired when this guy “handled” the package? I did a little informal testing with my Ruger and some packing materials from a package I got today. No amount of shaking, no matter how violent, would make the hammer fall. Only depressing the trigger would make that happen. I also put the cocked, but empty, gun in a padded mailer and messed around with that. I did not get the hammer to fall from any normal handling or shaking. I did get it to fall by feeling for the location of the trigger guard and making a deliberate, forceful effort to push my finger into the guard and press the trigger through the mailer. It is not something likely to happen by simple chance handling. I don’t believe the post office worker is telling the whole truth. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5447 "2015-08-07T04:07:19Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The package went thousands of miles without incident but then the gun fired when this guy “handled” the package?.. I don’t believe the post office worker is telling the whole truth. I’d buy that. Or, inaccurate reporting. None of which excuses the fool woman who sent a loaded and probably cocked piece through the mail. Plenty of estupid to go around. SS ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5448 "2015-08-07T04:12:08Z")
Thanks scumpup for that hard hitting investigative journalism. There you have it, folks. Scumpup fucked around with a gun and some packaging for a while, proving that accidental discharges are not possible. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5449 "2015-08-07T04:31:46Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Thanks scumpup for that hard hitting investigative journalism. There you have it, folks. Scumpup fucked around with a gun and some packaging for a while, proving that accidental discharges are not possible. It’s just another chapter in the Pit’s proud history of do-it-yourself experimentation. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5450 "2015-08-07T05:12:18Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If the civilian ownership of guns was banned by constitutional amendment tomorrow, would we become a dictatorship overnight? No. But considering that **every single human society of which we have record** that reserved weapons to the rulers and their enforcers, and forbade the common people from possessing them, either was or became a dictatorship or caste system, the testament of history is not encouraging on that score. Are we really that confident that somehow we’re the exception? That we’ve somehow achieved a magic social and political formula that means _our_ government can be trusted with an authority that has always been abused in the past? > > I for one am not so sanguine; in fact, I would assert that we’ve **already** seen the abuse of power that comes with a monopoly on weapons- namely at the hands of civil police forces. In the nineteenth century, as industrialization led to the expansion of big cities, we saw two concurrent developments: the domination of city and state politics by political “machines” and the idea that the masses needed “policing”, not just the upholding of the law but in the sense of the large-scale management of the herd. Riots, especially labor unrest had to be suppressed; the poor especially minorities like blacks had to be “kept in their place”, and organized crime _that hadn’t paid the necessary bribes_ needed to be squelched. In some times and places, the police were little more than the ruling machine’s bully boys, the biggest and best armed gang in town. It’s perhaps no coincidence that local ordinances against carry gained currency at this time, to give the troopers a monopoly on public force. You’ve been watching too many old movies. What you’re describing might have been true a hundred years ago and less, but bears little resemblance to today. Cops are a lot more accountable than they were back then. Things aren’t perfect, and not very good yet in some places, but more and more, abuses by police now get a public backlash and pressure is put on politicians to correct them. And now they can draw on a small industry that has grown around analyzing and improving police methods by being less adversarial. [See here for one example.](http://www.popcenter.org/) > [@Lumpy](#): > > Although things have improved thanks to the vigilance of the fourth estate, even today police tend to see themselves as a privileged class authorized to tell the proles to shut up and do what they’re told. Abuses even against white middle class citizens are still common; quadruply so for poor blacks. And now we’re seeing the expansion of civil police into paramilitary troops. There is absolutely nothing like a monopoly on force that goes to peoples’ heads and authority has a limitless innate tendency to expansion. I don’t think police today are saintly paladins and are unlikely to become so any time soon. So yes, I think an armed populace that could keep the authorities’ troops from getting too big for their britches is a great idea. And there’s the logical conclusion from the strawman you built in the first two paragraphs: more guns. Funny how gun owners’ solutions to everything is more guns. While you’re at it, try solving traffic congestion by putting more vehicles on the road. The police force is there for a reason. If it isn’t doing its job properly, fix it. Letting the police continue to throw their muscle around while arming the population against them just gives the cops a reason to up the ante, and you’ll end up with an arms race. It isn’t rocket surgery. Problem Solving 101 teaches you that you fix an oil leak by replacing the gasket, not continually pouring more oil in. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5451 "2015-08-07T05:52:32Z")
If an armed populace can keep the police in check, then it follows that an armed populace can violate the law with at least some level of impunity. Is that really what we want? And if an armed populace can keep the _military_ in check, then God help us, we’re back to rule of the jungle and survival of the fittest. If you can take arms against me because you don’t like how I voted in the last election, then I can do the same to you and we no longer have anything resembling a democracy. We’ve replaced ballots with bullets. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5452 "2015-08-07T09:19:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s just another chapter in the Pit’s proud history of do-it-yourself experimentation. Did he try firing it through a paper towel roll? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5453 "2015-08-07T09:26:23Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Did he try firing it through a paper towel roll? Home-made suppressor. Illegal. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5454 "2015-08-07T12:28:13Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Thanks scumpup for that hard hitting investigative journalism. There you have it, folks. Scumpup fucked around with a gun and some packaging for a while, proving that accidental discharges are not possible. You did nothing at all other than simply accept the story as written. Antis. They are not only ignorant about guns, they are proud of that ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5455 "2015-08-07T15:15:16Z")
If you read up on the Ruger .357, it looks like they made that gun for most of 2 decades before putting in the double-action trigger. If this woman was shipping one of the older, unmodified pistols, the hammer would have been resting on the cartridge. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5456 "2015-08-07T15:41:37Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You did nothing at all other than simply accept the story as written. Antis. They are not only ignorant about guns, they are proud of that ignorance. It makes more sense than the idea that they are opening up pacakges and playing with them in the post office and this one happened to be a loaded handgun. You don’t know the model of the weapon involved, the condition it was in, the manner in which it was packed, what the other contents of the package might have been… Yet you earnestly think you’ve done a bit of CSI forensic analysis in your rumpus room and have cracked the case! Imbecile. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5457 "2015-08-07T15:45:07Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I also put the cocked, but empty, gun in a padded mailer and messed around with that. Yeah, nobody ever got hurt messing around with a gun they were certain was unloaded… ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5458 "2015-08-07T15:47:40Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You did nothing at all other than simply accept the story as written. Antis. They are not only ignorant about guns, they are proud of that ignorance. I’ve seen nothing in this conversation to indicate that people are proud of their ignorance. That idea appears to exist just in your head. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5459 "2015-08-07T16:04:22Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I’ve seen nothing in this conversation to indicate that people are proud of their ignorance. That idea appears to exist just in your head. To be fair, the statement you quoted demonstrates not only that **Scumpup** is ignorant of the opposing position but also that he’s proud of his ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/5460 "2015-08-07T17:41:26Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > You’ve been watching too many old movies. What you’re describing might have been true a hundred years ago and less, but bears little resemblance to today. Cops are a lot more accountable than they were back then. Things aren’t perfect, and not very good yet in some places, but more and more, abuses by police now get a public backlash and pressure is put on politicians to correct them. And now they can draw on a small industry that has grown around analyzing and improving police methods by being less adversarial. [See here for one example.](http://www.popcenter.org/) While it’s true there’s been reform we’re still coming back from that place a hundred years ago, and old habits die hard. If it wasn’t for the advent of television such as exposed the 1968 “Police Riot” of Daley’s Chicago, who knows where we’d be? > [@](#): > > And there’s the logical conclusion from the strawman you built in the first two paragraphs: more guns. Funny how gun owners’ solutions to everything is more guns. While you’re at it, try solving traffic congestion by putting more vehicles on the road. > > The police force is there for a reason. If it isn’t doing its job properly, fix it. Letting the police continue to throw their muscle around while arming the population against them just gives the cops a reason to up the ante, and you’ll end up with an arms race. > > It isn’t rocket surgery. Problem Solving 101 teaches you that you fix an oil leak by replacing the gasket, not continually pouring more oil in. OK, let’s solve the problem by reducing the guns side of the equation: let’s have the police routinely go unarmed except for special armed-response units like in Britain. So that police know that their first option in a confrontation isn’t drawing a gun and throwing their muscle around. Good luck selling that. > [@davidm](#): > > If an armed populace can keep the police in check, then it follows that an armed populace can violate the law with at least some level of impunity. Is that really what we want? > > And if an armed populace can keep the _military_ in check, then God help us, we’re back to rule of the jungle and survival of the fittest. > > If you can take arms against me because you don’t like how I voted in the last election, then I can do the same to you and we no longer have anything resembling a democracy. We’ve replaced ballots with bullets. That’s why the Framers were mostly in favor of establishing a “Republic” rather than a “Democracy”- they were afraid of the rule of the jungle. But they didn’t propose to prevent that by disarming the populace. They proposed a two-step system which in their opinion offered the best balance between tyranny and anarchy: First, the laws would be established and the provisions for upholding them overseen indirectly by a government of elected representatives, rather than by hue and cry. The second step was to have the smallest possible professional armed government forces and to rely mainly on an armed population- the militia- for national defense or to back law enforcement officials. Flat-out defiance of the law was to countered by the armed, law-abiding majority; IOW, the rule of law was to be upheld by a consensus of the armed. If a law was so unpopular that the public couldn’t be troubled to assist in upholding it, then the lawmakers would have to reconsider just what the public really wanted. I know that today that sounds utopically minarchist, but apparently that’s what at least some of the framers proposed to try. That it didn’t happen was because the impulse to impose order by any means necessary proved too strong. In the case of the American Civil War, the rebellion by the people who didn’t like the results of the last election was quashed because a majority of the country was in favor of (or at least acquiesced to) serving in arms to uphold the law, as they saw it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=272) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=274)