Bad AD today..not me. kinda explicit.

[1911Tuner]

Give me some numbers. How many Glocks are in the hands of LE compared to other pistols? How many NDs?

Well, now I don't have any numbers 'cause I really don't keep up with'em...but it seems like every time you read or hear about this kinda thing...there's a high chance that a striker-fired pistol of some desing involved. I won't say the "G" word, because I know it evokes anger and resentment from that corner...but there it is.

In fact...When the Forsyth County SD (That's Forsyth County in NC, by the way.) did the first transition from revolvers to autopistols, they issued Gl...uh...a striker-fired pistol. Less than month later, the training officer shot himself in the leg with his.

Yes, yes...I know. Training. Training. Training.

 

[ilbob]

Accidents do happen. But failure to follow the 3 (or 4 if you so choose) rules is not an accident. Just because an action was unintentional does not make it accidental. JMHO.

I don't think we should beat up on the guy too much. People that should know better do stupid things all the time. We should learn from their mistakes, so hopefully we will make fewer of them ourselves.

There seem to be several basic categories of firearms incidents (see how I avoided the term accident).

1. Incidents that involve alcohol (or other drugs that impair your mental state). Despite what many people who imbibe believe, your inhibitions are reduced when you drink, and your mental and physical skills are impaired. Your natural focus on being safe relaxes, and the more you drink the more they are relaxed. If you regularly operate firearms while drinking, you can become convinced over time that you are safe because nothing has gone wrong yet, just as people who drive after drinking think they are perfectly safe when they are actually far more impaired then they think.

2. People just being stupid. Quick draw practice as a means of relieving boredom comes to mind. Shooting can be a very enjoyable activity as long as you pay attention. Guns are not toys. Once you decide it is OK to play with them, you have crossed the line. Is quick draw practice an inherently unsafe thing? Not in my opinion. It just needs to be done in a safe way.

3. Failure to pay attention. It is easy to get distracted. You unload and field strip your gun for cleaning pretty regular. It gets to the point where it is automatic, and you do not even think about it much while doing it. Thats a really BAD thing to let happen. Turn off the TV and make sure you follow the unloading and field stripping steps in the proper sequence, rather than relying on muscle memory to do it.

I knew a guy who bought himself a Bennili 9mm a number of years ago. I could not see the attraction but he liked it. One day he was at home and took it apart to clean it. He lost track of what he was doing when he went to put it back together and ended up with a gun that was stuck in battery (fortunately with no round in the chamber). Even a gun smith could not get it apart. Interarms tech support could not figure it out either. Took a call to Italy and a chat with the factory guys to get it apart and put back together correctly (and in 1980, a half hour call to Italy was not real cheap).

 

[Ed Ames]

Sorry Justin but I've got to say that, in our litigious socity, this is a better reference for "negligence":

Negligence is a legal concept usually used to achieve compensation for injuries (not accidents). Negligence is a type of tort or delict and a civil wrong, but it can also be used in criminal law. Negligence means conduct that is culpable because it misses the legal standard required of a reasonable person in protecting individuals against foreseeably risky, harmful acts of other members of society. Negligent behavior towards others gives them rights to be compensated for the harm to their body, property, mental well-being, financial status, or relationships. Negligence is used in comparison to acts or omissions which are intentional or willful. The law of negligence at common law is one aspect of the law of liability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligence

Discharges due to mechanical failure can be negligent discharges.

Discharges due to human failure can be accidental discharges.

To say otherwise reduces the value of the terms.

The only time we should be talking about negligent discharges is when there is clear cut negligence which goes beyond self-harm and clearly endangers others who had no reasonable expectation of being endangered. This does not meet that criteria because the shooter used a safe backstop.

The stories about rem 700s firing when the safety is disengaged ARE negligent discharge stories... but the negligence is on the part of remington not the people handling the firearms.

 

[ilbob]

In fact...When the Forsyth County SD (That's Forsyth County in NC, by the way.) did the first transition from revolvers to autopistols, they issued Gl...uh...a striker-fired pistol. Less than month later, the training officer shot himself in the leg with his.

Going from DA revolvers to Glocks seems to have been an issue with a lot of PDs. DA revolvers seem to be more forgiving.

A lot of cops seem to have been trained to pull out the revolver with their fingers already on the trigger. I am sure no one actually taught them that, but a lot of them seemed to do it. Chicago used to actually teach their recruits to cock the things and shoot them SA to improve their shooting scores. That led to a large number of unintentional discharges in the field.

 

[mister2]

I am truly distressed now.

It's bad enough someone shot his own hand.

It's even worse that a side discussion has opened up as to whether the person was negligent or not. To confine "negligence" to the very narrow legalistic definition offered here smacks of no-fault, permissive, political correctness that just galls me. The point is whether this person, who just shot himself in the hand, is responsible or not. If he is responsible, in my mind, he was negligent. If he is not responsible, then he is, at the very least, not a responsible man. Period.

 

[Ed Ames]

Do ya really think negligence is the only way you can be at fault in an accident?

A while ago I was riding my motorcycle... made a left hand turn and lost traction, next thing I know I'm over the bars and on the pavement. I stood up, thanked my helmet for saving my nose, and pushed my bike out of the road. Hurt for a month and my bike still has the scars.

Was I negligent? No. I followed best practices to the best of my ability. I broke no laws, had received training in operating a motorcycle, and had ridden 15,000 miles in the preceeding year so I was reasonably skilled at the time of the accident. Was I at fault? Certainly... I was the only person involved and the bike was in perfect condition. The road was in normal condition.

It was my fault... and with increased skill or better preperation I may have avoided the accident... but there was no negligence.

This is just common sense.

The same can be true with firearms.

 

[bluestarlizzard]

i am suprised at some of the stuff i'm hearing on this thread.
1. who on earth feild strips a loaded gun?!?!?! i mean, really. i don't care what type of gun it is, you always remove the magizine and rack the slide/bolt a few times to make sure. unless cartiridges have just magically started to appear in chambers, you have no exscuse not to compleatly clear a weapon before stripping/cleaning.
2. when you pull the trigger, before disasembly, you should have already completed step one. for that matter, you sould know the condition of ANY firearm you are handling and should verify that condition yourself. a mistake do to failure to clear a weapon are not acceptable. exscuses are just exscuses.
3. when you pull a trigger, you should KNOW the condition of the firearm and, even it you have verified that its unloaded a gazillion times, it should STILL be pointed in a safe direction.
humph.... this has gotten me so adjetated that i sound like my mother.... *grumble*

 

[atblis]

Yeah

Well, now I don't have any numbers 'cause I really don't keep up with'em...but it seems like every time you read or hear about this kinda thing...there's a high chance that a striker-fired pistol of some desing involved. I won't say the "G" word, because I know it evokes anger and resentment from that corner...but there it is.

I see numbers as high as 70% for LE use of Glocks. I have no idea what is the actual number, but it is high. Take that into account, and the number of ND/AD wont appear so bad.

 

[Tin Gizel]

Someone may have pointed it out, I didn't see it....

This wasn't an AD, it was a ND. It wasn't an accident, it was negligence.

 

[Ed Ames]

you always remove the magizine and rack the slide/bolt a few times to make sure.

Don't count on racking the slide/bolt. Thinking that nothing coming out was an indication there was nothing in could very well be negligence.

One of the few striker fired pistols I've handled had a problem with the extractor not engaging rounds that didn't come from the magazine. Load it through the mag and you're fine. Lock the slide back, drop a round in the chamber, and hit the slide release and you could work that slide 20 times and never see the round come out. The gun would fire though and when it fired the case would go flying. I discovered that issue because I'm mildly paranoid and like testing for flaws of that sort. You could use the gun for years without ever knowing of that little quirk. All it would take is someone finding the gun but no magazine and single-shotting the pistol to potentially leave you with a little surprise. Or whatever hang-up was keeping the extractor from engaging when it should have could get worse and suddenly maybe the gun is fine at the range (where the shell will be kicked around enough to engage the extractor) but won't really unload at home. If you pull back the slide a few times, think "oh oh I was carrying it around unloaded!" and then pull the trigger....

I don't know if the issue was specific to that gun or the entire line.

 

[Omaney]

Another one I worked with blew off his index finger the same way - we called him Frodo after that.

That's brilliant! I am LMAO! And he has a constant reminder of safety. My constant reminder is a hole in the wall that I am reluctant to patch up.

 

[Clipper]

The Springfield XD is the same way - makes me nervous everytime I strip it...even after checking the chamber 3847394872 times first.

Then let me be the first to recommend a revolver...Some people are just over the top about their paranoia against their own property. Much to the horror of many, I guess, I drop the mag, pull back and lock my slide, pick up the single cartridge I just watched eject, look once at the breech and down the well, and go to work. Been doing it that way for 40+ years, and haven't had a failure yet. 'Course I pay attention when I'm handling, loading or unloading a gun! I gotta shake my head at the guys who must sit around trying to figure out new ways to one-up each other about making sure it's empty. I mean, having a second party check your unloading of your own pistol?? Geez, you guys are killin' me...

As to the (insert appropriate non-high road pronoun here) who shot himself, what can I say? He needs a revolver too...

 

[buzz_knox]

Was I at fault? Certainly... I was the only person involved and the bike was in perfect condition.

I think you are mixing and matching terms. Fault infers liability, which arises due to negligence (a breach of the standard of care) or intention. It is possible to have accidents without fault.

If you laid your bike down due to going faster than the road conditions allowed, you were negligent. If it "just happened" and you didn't breach the standard of care, then you weren't negligent and wouldn't be found at fault.

In the matter at hand (pardon the pun), I'm hard pressed to find reasonable grounds for a finding of lack of negligence. Even if a round stayed in the chamber, the individual still placed in hand in front of the muzzle when the weapon was still in a functional state. He breached the rules, which constitute the normal standard of care.

 

[vtoddball]

I'll never understand why Glock would design a pistol that requires pulling the trigger in order to field-strip it.

I'll never understand why someone would pull the trigger on a gun while pointing it at their hand. I'll also never understand why you wouldn't be triple sure that a gun was unloaded before cleaning it.

 

[Thumper]

Although the guy clearly violated the rules...I'll never understand why Glock would design a pistol that requires pulling the trigger in order to field-strip it.

And JMB designed a gun that you have to fiddle with the muzzle to field strip.

I love 'em both.

 

[TX1911fan]

Negligence as a word means what it means, failure to exercise reasonable and prudent care. Negligence as a legal concept incorporates the definition, but applies it to third parties that may have been harmed. It is definitely possible to be negligent but cause no harm. Accidents imply things that happen even when there is no negligence on a person's part. The term "car accident" is really incorrect most of the time, as generally these "accidents" are caused by negligence (the failure to exercise reasonable and prudent care). I have, however, been negligent in my truck often but caused no damage. Ever gone through a stop sign because you weren't paying attention? I have. I didn't hit anyone, didn't cause damage, but I was clearly negligent, and HAD I hit someone, I could have been liable for the negligence.

 

[BryanP]

Who cleans a gun in his bedroom?

Actually, with a towel under everything it's not such a bad idea. I'd much rather replace a mattress than many of the other things I'd have to replace if I had an ND.

 

[Ed Ames]

Fault infers responsibility which can but does not need to include liability. Liability is external... if nobody else is involved there cannot be liability. There can be fault though.

In my case I wasn't going faster than law or road conditions in general allowed. It was a bright sunny day and the road was in normal condition. I was familiar with the road since it was quite near my home and I had ridden it less than 4 hours earlier. No negligence existed. It also didn't "just happen" ... we live in a world with physical rules and things never "just happen"... there is always causality at least at our level of awareness. I made a series of mistakes. I failed to identify some debris in the middle of the road as traction inhibiting. I failed to recover from the loss of traction. If the NTSB was reporting this as an aviation incident they say the cause was failure was pilot error... but they would not say that the pilot was negligent because the pilot (rider) was not disregarding the need to do those things, had been trained to do those things, and was attempting to do those things.

We consider the 4 rules to be the standard of care. However, it is important to remember that they are a modern invention and many long-time firearms owners have never heard of them. It is incorrect to say that ignorance of the rules is negligence. It is incorrect to say that a breach of rules which are known and accepted by only a subset of the gun-owning population is negligence.

In this case the operator followed the rule of not pointing the gun at any innocent or uninvolved party when he pulled the trigger.

Stupid? Yes. Negligent? ONLY if someone else was harmed. No harm, no foul.

I say this because I really think constantly jumping on every discharge which involves human errror as "negligent" can and will be used against us.

 

[BobbyQuickdraw]

I own and clean a Glock regularly. He was probably watching TV while doing it or something. I assume he's had the Glock for awhile, which may not be true. But the instructions are very explicit and I can't imagine not checking the chamber. Normally when I clean my gun it's because I'm coming home from the range and in CA we can't transport loaded firearms, so I start empty. And usually without a mag in.

Either way, rack the slide twice, then lock it back. Visual and physical inspection. Release slide. Point gun in safe direction. I live in an apartment so my choice is basically into an exterior wall and down so it will go into the ground outside, should a round go off.

Then go about removing the slide. I just got done teaching a room mate the ins and outs of shooting the Glock (she's not interested in cleaning) but I did show her how easy it is to see a bullet in the chamber and I showed her a bullet in the barrel. Before the flame starts, I showed her a locked open chamber with a magazine in it to show where the bullet would be, then removed mag, no feeding of around. I showed her the bullet in the barrel when the gun was disassembled and i put a bullet in the barrel to show her how it fits in.

 

[Justin]

Ed-

It is commonly held in the gun culture, among people who handle firearms on a daily basis, that an accidental discharge is one resulting from mechanical failure and that a negligent discharge is the unintended firing of a weapon due to failure to adhere to prudent safety procedures.

You are certainly welcome to argue legalistic semantics, but if you intend to follow that route, you're going to need to print out a copy of that Wikipedia article and carry it with you.

Even then, I'm not sure that definitions used by lawyers in the context of a court room or lawsuit really offers any more explanatory utility than the common usage among shooters.

 

[1911Tuner]

The fact that a striker fired pistol must be decocked for field-stripping is a nasty problem for idiots who don't bother clearing their guns before messing around with them.

And that...right...there is the issue. The only way to make a firearm "safe" is to redner it unable to chamber a round of ammunition. The lowest common denominator is the Human Being who is in control of the gun...or not in control of it as the case may be.

I think maybe that part of the problem is that there's no hammer that screams: "DANGER!" The very same thing that gives so many people the
willies whenever they see an autopistol carried in Condition One also serves to remind us to use an extra measure of caution.

You can test it for yourself if you have a double shotgun with exposed hammers and another one with concealed hammers. Cock the hammer gun, and lay it on a table beside the concealed hammer gun, in front of a typical non-gunny type fella...and inform him that both are loaded. His attention will be immediately drawn to the fact that the hammer gun is cocked. Even when you point out that both guns are cocked and loaded...he'll probably still be more wary of the hammer gun.

Training with a specific platform is the obvious answer...but at what point does that become mandatory before we're "allowed" to buy it?

So...You have to dry-fire the gun before you can field-strip it. As long as the handler drops the magazine and clears the chamber...all is well. How many times have any of us absent-mindedly omitted a step in a sequence? Not just with guns...but with anything that requires that steps be followed.

I'll go ahead and raise my hand, here. I've been handling guns my whole life...and once I forgot to drop the magazine before I racked a slide to check the chamber's condition. The magazine was loaded, too. It dawned on me that I'd just chambered a round because I was familiar with the difference in the sound that a 1911 makes when it's empty and when a round goes home, so I immediately cleared the pistol. Someone not so familiar with that may not have caught it. Not everybody who owns a (Insert Brand) is familiar with it. Sometimes they forget that one critical step...and that's the stuff that tragedies are made of.

It would be an easy task for a sharp engineer to redesign the striker guns so that they can be field-stripped without pulling the trigger. Of course, the chamber should still be cleared before starting...but at least a redesign would omit the one step in the sequence that is intended to make the gun fire.

 

[dhoomonyou]

HE broke the rules, and paid.

When I clean a gun, I always check and double check its empty.

I Spell the word out loud "E M P T Y ", BEFORE I pull the trigger.

when i do pull the trigger, the muzzle is pointed at my computer CPU, which is in front of a HUGE filled with paper Filing cabinet, and behind that a cinder block wall.

gotta be careful out there.

 

[TX1911fan]

Ed, I would argue that in your "accident" you were negligent. You failed to exercise reasonable care by watching for road debris. In a car, that might not be required, but on a motorcycle, especially while cornering, it is. One of the first things I learned when learning to ride a motorcycle, heck even a bicycle, is that when cornering, you have to watch for gravel in the road. If you don't you can slide out. You didn't exercise that care, hence you fit the definition of negligence. Would you have liability to a third party for that negligence? Only if you caused them damage. But the literal definition of negligence does not include the concept of liability. Only the legal definition as it pertains to damage and liability. Hence, you were negligent but not liable for damages to anyone.

 

[B. Adams]

There are problems with designing a striker fired pistol that you don't need to pull the trigger to disassemble. It would be difficult. By definition, the striker is held back by something (sear), and that sear is usually located in the frame. To get the sear out of the way of the striker, you have to pull the trigger.

To design a striker fired gun that doesn't need the trigger pulled, I think you'd have to do one of two things.

The first would be to have the slide come off the back of the gun instead of the front, which would create an obvious problem if the little part that held the slide on became broken. I've never had a slide hit me in the face, and I don't particularly care to. This would also create an issue with the location of the recoil spring assembly, but you could probably figure out a way to get it done.

The other way to do it would be to have something like a two-piece sear, where half is located in the frame and half is in the slide. When the trigger was pulled, the half in the frame would push the half in the slide up, and release the striker from the top instead of the bottom. When you disassembled the pistol, the striker would stay cocked, and each half of the sear would stay in each half of the gun. This would require a fairly large sear assembly, and the added parts would come with an increased risk of malfunction, and probably add a significant degree of complexity to the slide. Then again, I'm not a gun designer, so I could easily be wrong.

Instead, I think I'll just stick to my 1911's, which don't require the trigger to be pulled to disassemble. Incidentally, a 1911 can be disassmbled with a live round in the chamber, although I definitely don't recommend it.

Also, the "discharge" in question in this thread is definitely a Negligent Discharge. I can't think of too many ways to "accidentally" pull the trigger of a loaded gun, although I'm sure it's possible. However, he pulled the trigger on purpose, which he fully intended to do, so by definition it's not an "accident." In any case, I hope he's OK, and that everyone can learn something from his misfortune.

 

[Ed Ames]

Justin... my experience is that if you talk to 10 shoters about AD and ND you'll hear 5 definitions and six variations on "what are you talking about?" Instructor at the CHL class I took recently explained the difference one way ("accidental is when you follow enough of the rules that the bullet ends up going into a backstop designed to stop bullets, negligent is when it does harm"), you explain it another ("accidental is when the gun is busted, negligence is when the operator messes up", I explain it a third ("negligent is when there is legal negligence, accidental is when there is not"), and it would be reasonable to say that negligent is when there is negligence of any sort, accidental is when there is not. The list of possibilities goes on actualy.

Anyone with a tendency to be pedantic will need to carry a book around explaining their position on the subject. I'm far from alone.

I'm fine with the idea that there are accidental discharges that are caused by failures of good faith efforts to follow standard practice (in the design, manufacture, maintenance, or operation) and there are negligent discharges that are caused by a lack of effort to follow standard practices (in design, manufacture, maintenance, or operation). Seems reasonable and *useful* to me. I prefer the legal standard of negligence because it is more functional. In any case negligence requires a disregard of rules rather than a failure to follow the rules. You can have a gun in your hand, be fully aware of the importance of muzzle control, and still sweep your foot or hand. It isn't negligence it is a mistake.

Any standard which calls every failure 'negligence' is incorrect. There are random events (meteor strike), bad faith efforts (willfully shoddy maintenance), negligent efforts (insufficient thought or action to prevent incidents), good faith effort that fail (sufficient thought or action to normally prevent incidents, but a failure in this case e.g. pilot is trained and equipped to fly safely but crashes because he failed to see an obstruction he was actively looking for), failures that are moderated by good faith efforts (e.g. stories of old military facilities with sand buckets by the door so that people had a safe direction to aim as they unload firearms) and so on.


Won't bother me if I'm in the minority on this one though. People who carry concealed are in the minority... that don't make them wrong.