Tell us, Do you think this guy shoud be allowed to keep his job? If so, why? :dubious:
Well, Starguard, he’s doing a great job! What better way to teach people gun safety than to offer yourself as an expert and then end up shooting yourself? He took a bullet to teach 50 people the valuable lesson that guns are dangerous - even if you know how to use them.
But why should he keep his job? Well I found two mitigating factors in the article:
Ok - so it’s not like he forgot it was loaded or something like that. He was sincerely trying to get it unloaded.
Second, The first rule of gun safety is to always treat a gun as if it’s loaded - even if you know it’s not hence:
The gun wasn’t pointed at the audience. The gun wasn’t pointed at the man’s head. The gun wasn’t pointed at the walls (where it could penetrate and hurt someone).
The gun was pointed safely at the floor, albeit through his leg.
So it sounds like to me it was just a freak accident. A bit ironic, but not a reason to fire an employee if he has had no other problems.
Just my two cents.
- Peter Wiggen
Well, he drew his weapon, removed the magazine, then worked the slide.
At this point a mechanical malfunction took place, and the round in the chamber did not eject, as it should have. That was an accident.
But, that also means the man had a round in the chamber in his holster, during a gun safety lecture in a room full of civilians, including children.
Should he be allowed to continue as a firearms safety expert representing the police department?
There might be more careful officers on the force.
Tris
I rather think he might be a good spokesman for how stupid some people can be around firearms - especially police and other “trained officers”, who are by no means globally exempt from being ignorant of how to use their own weapon. Hopefully, someone was videotaping the presentation, and he can use this as supporting material.
Triskadecamus, I think you’re making a big assumption on whether or not a mechanical failure occured - there is no evidence of that from the article. As far as we know, he put the clip back in, worked the slide, then shot himself. Even if the live round somehow failed to extract (which is really pretty rare), why did he pull the trigger? Or was this gun somehow suffering from a double failure of a stuck firing pin and failed extractor? Something I’ve never heard of in all my life.
In this thread
http://www.berettaforum.net/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=003038 we (gun owners) discussed this, it is still my contention that there is no such thing as an AD (accidental discharge), there are only ND’s (negligent discharge) and this guy is at the least not capable of teaching gun safety. The gun WAS NOT!!! pointed in a safe direction and apparently the story was not reported “exactly right” (the reporter does not know a lot about gun safety).
Unclviny
You are supposed to visually and physically inspect the chamber in case the round isn’t extracted. And releasing the slide should also be done in a safe direction. I doubt that this was a slamfire as CNN sort of eludes to and was more than likely a finger pulling the trigger after the slide was closed.
It takes a swipe at anti-gunners use of “trained professionals should only have guns” spiel IMO. FWIW Double Action Only semi-automatics and revolvers were developed so that “trained professionals” (cops) wouldn’t be as likely to shoot themselves or others on “accident.”
I don’t get it. Do you mean that he shouldn’t have a bullet in the chamber for that particular safety lecture only, or in general?
A pistol is useless if there is no bullet in the chamber. You won’t have enough time to pull the slide in an emergency. Only in the movies they do that because it looks cool, but in real life its a no-no.
"And that’s why you don’t teach lessons!
According to the source, it appears he did not pull the trigger. I don’t know how guns work but to me it seems like some sort of mechanical failure. You assume that he replaced the clip, or at least make us believe you assume so. I don’t see where you could get that assumption from. From what I can extract from the source the man made an assumption that the round would have been ejected, and having a failure in that part followed by some chain of events when he released the slide he became injured. He still maintained a reasonable level of safety. Whether that amount of safety is reprimandable, I still haven’t decided.
I am under the impression that you can carry a gun in two ways. Either have the gun “cocked-and-locked” relying on the mechanical lock to prevent accidental discharge or “uncocked-and-unlocked” and rely on the heaviness of the trigger. The gun in both cases has a bullet in the chamber (I am talking about DA-SA pistols here, like 1911).
Are there any people with more experience who can verify what I just said?
Only having the short article to go by, I would have to say this was a big mistake. I would never rely on someone else to verify that the chamber was empty, especially someone who may not have experience with firearms.
There are four cardinal rules of gun safety. In most cases at least two are violated to have an injury and I think there were three violated here. Just a bit of conjecture but it seems he violated rule one - every gun is loaded - by not verifying himself that the chamber was empty. Rule two was clearly violated becuse the muzzle was pointed at something he probably did not wish to destroy. I’d bet the the violated rule three and had his finger on the trigger when dropping the slide as it is extremely unusual to have s discharge from just dropping the slide unless the trigger is also pulled.
That’s all assuming the events were as described.
The source is a sketchy, third-hand description of events - and note as well that no report was made of a mechanical failure. Many times it takes a detailed accounting to determine what really happened in an accidental shooting, but nearly all of the time (>99%) it is human error . Since extraction failures on service weapons of unfired rounds are very rare (I’ve never seen one or heard of one in 17 years of shooting, save on a .22 rifle) it seems highly odd to me. Plus, how did the gun fire without the trigger being pulled? You would have to have a double failure of two separate mechanisms, neither of which is especially prone to failure.
I get it from almost two decades of safe firearms usage in a variety of condtions and with a variety of firearms. Since I live in a country that actually trusts me with semiautomatic handguns and rifles, I have that luxury. And I get my assumption from reading reports of accidental shootings over years, and from instruction in courses on how to avoid accidental shootings, how accidental shooting occur, etc. And from personal experience of people I know who have done similar things.
In the chain of events you propose, two separate and very unlikely mechanical failures have to occur. In the chain of events I believe happened - one I personally know was done by an acquaintence back in 1989 AND by a friend in 1995 - a person opens the slide, checks it’s not loaded, then by habit replaces the clip. And then, if they happen to be resting their finger on the trigger, then it only takes a very slight pressure to fire many semiautomatic handguns in that situation.
Pop-culture reference to a TV show discussed here.
Yep, big mistake to have an amateur check the chamber. I’ve personally had all kinds of weird jams on a C7 rifle (Canadian version of the M16) including one that required a near-complete dissassembly to fix, but the single most likely cause of this incident is an uncleared chamber.
This is an interesting opinion from an uneducated poster, much like the observation from the witness was very possibly from an uneducated source. Please see unclviny’s mention of NEGLIGENT DISCHARGES. I can pull the slide back a little bit on my pistol and not eject the chambered round. He asked the uneducated audience to check to see if a round was still in there? This man screwed up, no question in my (educated) mind.
With respect to the OP, yes, the guy should be allowed to keep his job.
He will never trust anyone elses eyes to check that the chamber is empty. He will have a serious grip on the slide when he operates it. He won’t point the muzzle anywhere he wouldn’t mind having a bullet go. And he won’t put his finger inside the trigger guard without intent to fire.
The guy got first-hand experience regards mis-fires and lived. Put him back out there!
I am assuming that the article was correct in the order of actions, you are assuming that it was incorrect.
You make your assumptions; you take your chances.
You think he took the clip out, then put it back, then worked the slide.
That is not what the article said.
I was using the article as a reliable report.
But your way, there still is ample reason to assume that this may not be the best choice of safety officer.
Tris
So by habit, you mean that it is proper etiquette, in terms of gun safety, to replace the clip? And I suppose it is proper etiquette to have your finger on the trigger while this is going on. If the trigger is so light, then why would you have your finger on it? It seems that if you were trained to abide by gun safety your finger should be outside of the trigger guard at all times, unless you are firing.
So because you are “educated”, and just because you have experience with guns you believe that you have to be right over me. I gave a reasonable possibility, on that may not be as probable as yours but still capable of describing the actual circumstances. In fact because of your experience, it looks like it is clouding your judgement over the events that took place. According to all of the gun experts here, the chances of a mechanical failure are slim to none. So maybe he assumed that pulling the slide back would eject the round because after all the chances are slim to none, right? Maybe he checked but through human error he was unable to see a round was still in there. You can’t assume he only had a child observe if a round was in the chamber. He may have checked and then had audience participation. If the man made his decision based on the child’s observation then yes, he should be fired. But if it was just an unfortunate circumstance, then he would better serve to demonstrate the need for gun safety.
I don’t even know what the man was meant to be demonstrating. Does anyone know? Was he trying to show the gun wouldn’t fire without any rounds?
I’ve mentioned my guns in other threads but here’s the latest in safety.
My latest acquisition is an M1 Carbine. When I bought it from my bro-in-law, I had him show me exactly where the safety was, how to release the clip, and how to lock the bolt during loading.
2 weeks later, and still not a cartridge bought, I had engaged the loading action from the manual bolt, checked the barrel for debris and gave a good look in the chamber. I had to dry-fire each time to reset it.
Then my brother comes over to check it out.
Keep in mind, I still hadn’t bought any rounds for it, and it’s been dry-fired about a dozen times.
So I unlock it from the case, make sure the safety is on, remove the clip, and open-lock the chamber. Then we head outside, I unlock the gun (cocking it), unlock the safety and dry-fire into the grass. Reset the safety and hand it over.
Overly cautious? Maybe. But I can guarantee you will never see my name in the papers about anything like this.
Not to be overly confrontational, but what the heck does this have to do with gun enthusiasts? Plenty of people in plenty of professions have accidents with the tools necessary to that profession. And lots of those accidents cause injury to themselves and others. I agree that making a mistake with a firearm, especially in a safety lecture, is not something to be taken lightly, but accidents with tools are endemic to a technological society.
What, exactly, is your reason for directing this question to “gun enthusiasts” in such a pointed manner?