# Whats it called when someone kills themselves accidentally? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 27, 2010, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503 "2010-12-27T07:36:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bleibtreu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bleibtreu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleibtreu)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/41 "2010-12-28T22:57:42Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Right. Safeties fail. And this is why you don’t point the gun at yourself, nor do you pull the trigger. \Even when the safety is on\ Just want to point out that there’s a common perception that a gun, a semi-automatic handgun specifically, always has a “safety lever” which has to be manually switched into an “OK to fire” position and can be placed in a position in which it the gun can not fire. In fact, one of the most popular manufacturer of handguns for both law enforcement and civilian use today is Glock. A Glock handgun uses three separate safety mechanisms. One of those is the “trigger safety”, which is a small lever integral to the trigger itself. When the user’s finger is on the trigger, it depresses that lever. As the trigger is pulled, the “striker safety” and “drop safety” are also automatically disengaged. They engage again after firing. There’s no separate “on/off” safety lever. The goal of this mechanism is for the gun to only fire when the trigger is pulled. But it will also fire whenever the trigger is pulled. So, with a Glock the safety is always “on”. But if you point one, loaded, at yourself and pull the trigger, it will still always fire. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/42 "2010-12-28T23:07:52Z")
Well, I’m certainly not a firearms expert. But I do know enough to state confidently that if a gun is not pointed at you, you cannot shoot yourself with it. ---
**Author:** ![bleibtreu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bleibtreu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleibtreu)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/43 "2010-12-29T06:48:11Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, I’m certainly not a firearms expert. But I do know enough to state confidently that if a gun is not pointed at you, you cannot shoot yourself with it. Yep. And, of course, “pointed at you” can mean pointed at any body part at all, as football player Plaxico Burress found out when his gun, a Glock, slipped from the waistband of his sweat pants and he grabbed it in panic. In doing so he apparently gripped and, inadvertently, pulled the trigger. Again, while some people afterward wondered why he wouldn’t “have the safety on” while carrying it, it technically was on, as it always is until the trigger is pulled. But his grip on the trigger both disengaged the safety and fired a round, and he shot himself in the leg. ---
**Author:** ![bleibtreu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bleibtreu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleibtreu)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/44 "2010-12-29T06:50:24Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Cop shoots self in leg during firearms safety demo? He pointed the gun at his leg with his finger on the trigger and **the safety off** , Just to expand on my prior point, that gun was also a Glock. There was no safety lever to turn “off”. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/45 "2010-12-29T07:00:45Z")
Back to the OP: when would-be terrorists blow themselves up at home (something that happens fairly often), the Israeli media usually refers to them as “work accidents”. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/46 "2010-12-29T15:37:05Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > When someone dies while “cleaning their gun”, it is [almost always a suicide](http://www.aaimedicine.org/journal-of-insurance-medicine/jim/2000/032-04-0266.pdf) that the victim is attempting to disguise as an accident. You are a sadly typical product of the cynical times we live in. When cleaning my weapon it accidently went off and killed my ex wife,her lover, the MIL, several people I happened to owe money to, and a bloke who looked at me in a funny way. But you should have seen the looks of disbelief I got when I explained what had happened. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/47 "2010-12-29T17:22:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > They sure do make mistakes. But the mistake is mistakenly pointing the gun at someone and mistakenly pulling the trigger. Well, I’m not arguing that the bullet circles around and hits someone out of a direct line with the barrel. The gun must be lined up with what it hits. And perhaps it’s a quibble. But it’s not always the case that the gun was _intentionally_ or even _consciously_ pointed at someone. Maybe it was hung on a coat hanger in a closet, and when other clothes were shifted, the gun was now pointed in an unanticipated direction, perhaps by someone who didn’t even know it was there. Perhaps the gun was kept on the bedside table, and someone walking past bumped it, rotating the barrel into line with the pillows. I’ve seen guns in both these positions where this _could_ have happened to them. Perhaps the gun was [safely pointed downrange when the [intentional] shooting started](http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6121915&page=1), but moved due to recoil. The guy who threw his rifle over the fence didn’t “point it at” anyone; it was pointed skyward. He _then_ moved into line with the barrel. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/48 "2010-12-29T17:31:37Z")
Let’s all give a shooting hello to [Pkaxico Burress](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaxico_Burress#Accidental_shooting) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503/49 "2010-12-29T17:47:30Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I’ve read reports of a man shot by his Labrador… Did the dog serve time? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-called-when-someone-kills-themselves-accidentally/565503.md?page=2)