How Unintentional Discharges Happen

[pax]

General Geoff ~

I had decided to concentrate only on preventable, unintentional discharges that featured some human error. After reading your story and the rest of that thread, I've decided to include it as well because there are still lessons we can learn from both events. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

***********

More events:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=64140 post #28 -- Gun owner had people coming over for a party, and put his loaded handgun in a kitchen cupboard. During the party, one of the guests found the gun and sent a round through the cabinet and then through an exterior wall. The bullet lodged in a banister on the outer wall of the staircase outside the gun owner's apartment. The owner and the guest had both been drinking. Causes: an irresponsible person (the guest, who had been drinking and who may not have known anything about firearms or firearms safety) was given access to a gun. He thought the gun was unloaded (rule 1) and pointed it in an unsafe direction, and deliberately pulled the trigger with the gun pointed in that unsafe direction (rules 2, 3, and 4).

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=64140 post #14 and #18 -- Shooter was dry-firing a gun, then loaded it preparatory to putting it away for the evening. Shooter got distracted by reading some material that was lying on his workbench, then picked up the pistol, racked the slide from the front and pulled the trigger in one motion. The bullet passed through the shooter's hand, removing his pinky finger. Causes: Distraction (reading material). An unloaded gun (rule 1). Unsafe direction (rule 2 - body parts in front of the muzzle). Finger on trigger while racking the slide (rule 3).

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=183803 Shooter was cleaning two guns. Finished with one, loaded it, cleaned the other. Decided to "check on" the first gun, sent a round within inches of his own leg. Shooter commented that he habitually does keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, and the round came to rest inside his floor. Causes: an unloaded gun (rule 1). No further harm resulted because rule 2 was followed.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=183803 post #41 Gun owner took his wife out goose hunting. She had never been hunting before, but he assumed she would be okay. He told her when and where to get up to shoot, but did not discuss the four rules with her. Later that day, she stood up in the blind to shoot, swinging the shotgun around and pulling the trigger when it was about 4 inches away from the gun owner's ear. Shooter comments, "I almost got my head blown off because I was too stupid to take the time to teach a beginner safety basics before handing them a shotgun and ammunition." Apart from hearing damage, no harm resulted from the mishap, but this was due to luck, not to deliberate safety procedures. Causes: rule 4 violation.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=267562 The shooter was at the range with a Remington 700 rifle which had not been fired in several years. With the gun pointed safely downrange, the shooter placed five rounds into the rifle and cycled the action (bolt action), putting a round into the chamber. He tried to pull the trigger, and the trigger did not move. Puzzled, keeping the muzzle pointed downrange, he handed the rifle to a friend. The friend was also unable to pull the trigger, and rotated the bolt handle up and then stiffly back down again. Still no trigger movement. The man had removed his hand from the trigger area, and he and his friend were looking quizzically at the gun when it went off a few seconds later. Causes: The gun these shooters were handling was mechanically unsafe, but no harm resulted from the broken mechanism because the two shooters were consciously and carefully following all four of the safety rules. Even though the gun fired without anyone having a finger anywhere near the trigger, no harm resulted, because the shooters did not allow the firearm to point at anything they were not willing to shoot (rule 2). In this case, treating the gun with respect (rule 1) and good muzzle discipline (rule 2) saved the day even when the gun malfunctioned.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=267562 post #14 tells the tragic story of a similar malfunction with another Remington 700. More details of the actual shooting can be found at http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a8098b57302.htm and http://missouriwhitetails.com/other_news.htm. This one was a horrific tragedy: a Montana mom was unloading her rifle at the end of a hunt. In her own words, "I pulled the safety off and it fired. The gun went off. My finger was nowhere near the trigger. I had an open hand." Her 9-year-old son was on the far side of the horse trailer at which the gun was pointed when it discharged, and was shot through the abdomen. He died in her arms a short time later. Causes: there is no doubt that the gun was mechanically unsafe. Guns should not fire when no one is touching the trigger! This was, plain and simple, a dangerous mechanical error. Damage from the mechanical error could have been averted, however. The mom had the rifle pointed in an unsafe direction (rule 2) when the mechanism malfunctioned. If she had been following all four of the rules at that moment, the gun would still have fired unintentionally, but that terrible tragedy would not have happened.

Stay safe out there, folks.

pax

 

[unspellable]

1. All guns are always loaded (treat them so!)
2. Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target (and you have made the decision to shoot).
4. Be sure of your target (and what's beyond/behind it).

First, a comment. Rule 2 will not prevent an ND, it only reduces the consequences.

1st experience. Loaned my Winchester M1894 to a buddy when we went deer hunting. On coming out of the woods onto a dirt road he racked the action to empty the rifle. The lever picked up the tail of his sweat shirt and shoved it into the trigger. Rule 2 prevailed, and the only consequences were a hole in the road and one of those “Oh Jesus!” moments. But to this day I cannot see where any of the four rules were violated.

2nd experience. Now it’s my turn. I had a S&W Model 41 pistol (22LR) in a duck holster made for a Webley Mk VI laying on the truck seat with the chamber empty. On returning to the farm yard I reached into the cab and took it out. The pistol was a loose fit and fell out on the ground. I spent some time bemoaning the chip in the butt of the stock, emptied the magazine, then pointed the pistol at the ground and pulled the trigger to de-cock it. Rule 2 prevailed and another hole in the ground was made. In this case it might be said that I violated rule 1 by not specifically inspecting the chamber before pulling the trigger. The chamber was KNOWN beyond any doubt to be empty, the only explanation being that the pistol hit the deck butt first hard enough to rack the slide. Probably would never happen with a center fire pistol with its stiffer springs.

3rd experience. My former boss was looking at a client’s collection. He looked over a Browning High Power, then a shot gun. He picked up the High Power again, pointed it at the window and pulled the trigger, putting a neat hole in the window glass. The owner had reloaded the pistol while he was looking at the shot gun. So far as is known, rule 2 prevailed, but no one can say where the bullet actually ended up. This was a clear violation of rule 1 and possibly of rule 4.

And that brings up rule 5. Never make assumptions about what other people in the area will or won’t do.

 

[saltydog452]

Cleaning or dry-firing with the aid of a 6-pack.

That oughta increase the odds of something unfortunate happening.

salty.

 

[heypete]

I took my cousin out to the range yesterday (well, out to the National Forest).

He has a good knowledge of firearm safety thanks to the Boy Scouts, but has never owned his own gun. Everything he did was safety-conscious, though he was clearing guns in a unusual way...for example, with the 10/22, he'd rack the bolt, drop the magazine, and put the safety on. Not really safe, as he could have just chambered a round, but at least he's on the right track.

Some brief instruction got him to drop the magazine, hold the bolt open, visually inspect the magwell (to verify there's no magazine present) and the chamber (verify that there's no live ammo loaded), either lock the bolt open or close it (depending on the situation -- I frequently leave the bolt open and leave the rifle vertical to get some convective airflow through the barrel and suppressor to cool both down) then engage the safety, all while pointing it in a safe direction and obeying all the safety laws.

We had a fun time, and it was quite satisfying to see him be safe to the best of his knowledge, and then when given suggestions to be safer, adopt those suggestions at once.

.....

That said, I had one ND at a range a few years ago -- I was shooting my semi-auto Browning M1919. It had no trigger guard, and while the forward part of the receiver was mounted to a home-built mount, the rear end (with the trigger) was unsupported. I set it down gently on a sandbag while it was still loaded, and the sandbag depressed the trigger, firing the gun. The round went into the berm, but I was still very alarmed and remember that incident to this day. Fortunately, all the other safety rules were followed, and nobody was hurt.

 

[Caimlas]

And what sort of correlation did you find in the kind of pistols that the people had?

 

[pax]

unspellable ~

Good post, plenty of food for thought there. Let's talk about it ...

First, a comment. Rule 2 will not prevent an ND, it only reduces the consequences.

Actually, none of the safety rules will prevent a gun from firing. They only reduce the consequences when the gun does fire, ensuring that only things we don't mind shooting get shot.

The rules are based upon two universal truths:

1) All human beings make mistakes.

2) All mechanical devices can fail.

The overlapping safety rules exist to reduce or eliminate severely negative consequences from these inevitable events. They prevent tragedy when a human being makes a mistake while handling a deadly weapon. They function to protect human life when a mechanical device fails to work as designed.

Your stories above, incident 1. Nobody got hurt because all four of the rules were being followed at the moment an unforseeable mechanical event happened. Habitually keeping the gun pointed in a safe direction at all times the gun is being handled can seriously reduce the risk of tragedy following such an unforeseen event (see the final two stories in my previous post for a little more discussion of that same dynamic).

Incident 2. You violated rule 1, plain and simple. The gun had been out of your hands and out of your immediate control. It was not, therefore, KNOWN to be empty when you picked it up. All guns are always loaded; the unescapable correllary to that is that if you are going to treat the gun as if it is unloaded (by "dry firing" or "dropping the hammer" or any other don't-really-want-a-bullet-right-now action) you'd best check it and then check it again before you do that. And having checked it, you still treat it with the respect you'd give a loaded gun, and do not point it at your best friend or a favorite body part or in any other unsafe direction while handling it (rule 2). You did that part right. Rule 2 saved your butt after you clearly and deliberately broke rule 1.

Incident 3. As you say, a clear violation of rule 1. The gun had been out of his hand and out of his control, yet he treated it as if it was KNOWN to be empty. Rule 2 wasn't in play, because a window is not a safe direction; that no worse harm happened was merely luck and not good planning, and wasn't due to any vestigial remnant of the safety rules. Rule 3 was also violated in that he put his finger on the trigger without pointing the gun at a designated target (a "target" being any spot where you have deliberately determined is the best place for a bullet to go in any given situation), and of course the spot where he did point the gun had no safe backstop, making it also a rule 4 violation.

The thing is, of course, you can violate all four rules and have nothing bad happen. People do it all the time. Luck happens.

But you cannot habitually break any one of these safety rules without it coming back to bite you, sooner or later. And the more often you handle firearms without obsessively following the rules, the more likely it is to be sooner rather than later.

pax

 

[pax]

Caimlas ~

The links are there, and you can follow them if you wish more details than my summaries reported. Lots of good material in the old threads.

You could Google "negligent discharge" site:thefiringline.com or "negligent discharge" site:thehighroad.org if you wanted to, too. I only got through a couple of pages for either site and there were literally hundreds more links to choose from.

I wasn't looking specifically for gun types and did not note them except where it seemed pertinent to the sequence of events. I did notice, however, that people do made mistakes with all types of guns -- everything from rifles to shotguns to revolvers to semi-automatics. There was no type of firearm that was immune to human error. Obviously, the more common firearms were more commonly reported to have been involved in mishaps; that would, I think, be a function of the fact that there are more such guns out there to report.

pax

 

[S.P.E.C.T.R.E.]

I clean my carry pistol about once a month (obviously more if I've done range shooting).

I leave the damned thing in the OWB paddle holster that I carry during the week (mostly for commuting). I'm not constantly clearing, loading, or unloading it which seems to be when most UDs happen. When I get home I throw it in my lock box and I'm done.

When I clear it to clean it, I check the LCI and then lock the slide back and LOOK at the chamber. When I pull the trigger to disassemble, it's pointed at my basement cinderblock wall. Excessive handling causes UDs.

EDIT: I'm downright obsessive/compulsive about this because a fellow armed guard got shot in our squad room years ago when a colleague was disassembling his Glock. Dropped the mag but didn't clear the chamber. The guy he shot had a pouch on his duty belt with a folding knife. It stopped the slug and he only got a bruise.

 

[pax]

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. ~

I'm pretty sympathetic with that point of view, and tend to lean that way myself.

But ...

Just this morning I was up at the range with a friend. We got there, and he challenged me to a "shoot it cold with whatcha got" run at the steel plates. We put our ears on, and I pulled out the timer for his run. He pulled his gun out of his holster and ... click. He had to tap rack; when he did, nothing came out of the chamber, so it was obvious he'd been carrying with an empty chamber.

He finished his run.

I said, "Unloaded...?"

He said, "Yeah. I don't know how long ..."

We decided it had probably been unloaded since the last time he'd been to the range, three days before.

*wry face*

pax

 

[General Geoff]

The loudest noises in the world are:

A "BOOM" when you expect a "click," and

A "click" when you expect a "BOOM"

 

[CountGlockula]

pax, great post. I'd recommend this being a sticky wicky.

 

[HeedJSU]

Never had an ND, but....

I have a great uncle who knows just enough to be dangerous. He's a know it all, and will ridicule you if you do something he thinks is wrong. Case in point; My grandfather had a Remington 870 LW (.410) that he wanted me to have when I turned 20 (why 20, I don't know.) When I turned 20, I called him and asked about the shotgun. He told me that Great Uncle Bill (name changed to protect the innocent, LOL) had the shotgun so he could dispatch of some squirrels, that I needed to go get it. I went to Bill's house to pick up the shotgun. He picked it up to hand it to me and swept the barrel across my face with his finger in the trigger guard. After I got back up off the floor from ducking, (reflex action) He laughed, called me a stupid explicative, and told me that the shotgun was unloaded and called me a girl in a not so friendly way. He handed me the shotgun, and I immediately racked the slide. Guess what came out of the chamber? That's right boys and girls, a loaded shell, with 000 buck, nonetheless. He stuttered for a few minutes about how he "never kept the damned thing loaded" and eventually just hung his head and apologized. That little lesson taught me to ALWAYS check the action of any gun that I handling but not planning to shoot.

Justin

 

[yhtomit]

Thanks for the work in assembling this, pax. Concentrating diffuse knowledge is hard work, and I really like this. Will add two small incidents of my very (embarrassing) own:

1) A few years ago, shooting a borrowed gun (belongs to my then-girlfriend's father), I was expecting a much longer, harder trigger pull (what kind of gun was this? I *think* a Cz, need to ask him about it to be sure) instead of the wispy nothingness of its actual trigger. Was startled by the shot, and clenched my finger again, with predictable results. All pointing downrange, glad to say, but nonetheless a humbling, scary experience. When people talk about triggers properly feeling like "a breaking glass rod," this one was like a glass rod created by Tolkien's elves and supercooled for extra breakiness.

2) While shooting a .22 pistol at small outdoor range (I was the only one there), I answered a call to my cell phone, which I keep handy as a possible emergency communication tool, rather than for casual chatting at the range. However, my sister called, and I picked up, having removed my earmuffs. After concluding the conversation, I picked up the gun again ... with my muffs around my neck, not on my ears. Let me tell anyone who disbelieves, .22 can be LOUD when you expect the muffled version and get the full experience. The shot was safely aimed; no one was in any danger, and the trigger pull was no accident, but it was an ears-ringing experience to remember.

Neither of these is my dumbest experience in life, or even with guns, but thought I'd toss 'em in.

timothy

 

[ADKWOODSMAN]

Pax, Thanks for a great thread. I only hope my 55 years of gun handling and religiously following the 4 rules continues FOR EVER.
RDH

 

[Wheeler44]

Great thread Pax

The only accidental discharge I can remember witnessing was actually weather related.
When I was a young man in Alaska my brother and I took my mothers Winchester pump action .22 on a boating trip. The wind picked up and started to blow spray over us and the contents of our skiff. It was winter and real cold. Consequently everything in the boat, occupants included, was covered in a coat of ice. My brother, after swimming to retrieve the skiff (we didn't know enough to pay attention to the rising tide) had a pretty good case of hypothermia going as well as swollen extremities from frostbite. My Mother , a very savvy shooter and outdoors person watched us row across the bay (we had broken the shear pin on the outboard) as the wind picked up. She helped us dock the skiff and load up our gear, then drove drove us home. We told her that her .22 was loaded, but since it was still covered in ice she said to just put it behind the wood stove while she tended to my brother.
After she treated my brothers ailments, she picked up her rifle, pointed it at the floor and worked the pump. I guarantee she did not have her finger on the trigger. I can say that with certainty because I was watching her and I also know that she is one of the most skilled shooters I have ever met. When she worked the pump forward the hammer fell on a live shell and discharged into the floor. Complete silence. The look on her face was as if she had shot one of her own children. She carried her rifle to the front porch and proceeded to empty the magazine. She then came back in and cleaned the rifle and put it in the gun rack. Then she said " that was the first time I ever shot something I didn't mean to, and that is why you never , ever, point a gun something you don't want to kill". I use that story to illustrate to my children how anybody, even Gramma Joannie, can experience an accidental discharge.

 

[BBQJOE]

Good job Pax.
Being as that you said you didn't pick the threads for any particular reason, it seems somewhat apparent that "Dry firing" might be the largest contributor to the cause of ND.

 

[Trope]

Thank you very much for putting this together. I had casually noticed the distraction theme in the past, and it is interesting to see how common it actually is.

 

[chopz]

thank you.

as a fairly inexperienced shooter i've been reading a lot over the past 6 months from several sources (mostly on the internet) in the interest of always being very safe and careful when handling a firearm. a thread like this serves to remind me not to lighten up on my diligence.

i have you - and the several like you who've written similar things - to thank for the good habits i'm working to ingrain in myself.

 

[Working Man]

Great post pax, everyone needs a reminder once in a while.

Since I have started actively training new shooters I have created a
information sheet that I go over with them.

My rule #5 is designed to reduce the likelihood of the distracted ND
happening.

5) The firearm in question is only considered cleared after the chamber has
been verified by you to be cleared and remains in your direct possession.
Once the firearm is in someone's else's possession or out of your direct
control even if still within your visual field it is no longer to be considered
clear and must be re-cleared upon your handling of said firearm.

 

[unspellable]

experience 2

Pax, yes, it's my bad that I didn't check the chamber before "dry firing'. But I think it's still important to note that the chamber was definitely known to be empty before the incident. I had a freak event in that the pistol hit the ground butt first and racked the slide, so we need to know that such a thing is possible. (It might have dawned on me if I had bothered to count the rounds when I emptied the magazine.)

Bottom line of course, is that the rules are there to protect against freak events too.

And experience 3 leads me to say we need a rule 5 about never assuming what somebody else is doing. You are correct, in that the window was not "known" to be a safe direction.

 

[dk-corriveau]

Pax, thank you for the update for everyone.

I will admit that mine was on your original list. Fortunately, it was a learning experience that I have not forgotten that only cost me some pride and some time patching up some drywall.

Bottom line is you can not be too safe and even if you think you are handling your firearms safely, you should revisit your safety procedures time and again to avoid becoming complacent.

Safe shooting everyone!

 

[ZMP_CTR]

Just my 2 cents, but from what I have read and heard, most negligent discharges appear to the result of seasoned people being complacent. I know a SWAT guy who put a round through his wall while cleaning his gun. It was a real eye opener. It can happen to anyone anytime if you let your guard down. I stick to the basics everytime. I'm border line paranoid about gun handling. Once it goes off, you can't take it back.

I hate it the most when someone at the range is being a bozo. To date, I have ticked two people off at the range. One guy actually had his gun pointed at me. I said, "hey guy, how about some muzzle control?" His reply was it is not loaded, which it was! I told him I don't care if it is loaded or not, that it was poor practice and an accident waiting to happen. It was not well received, but he stopped and started being safe. Another guy had his kid handling his "unloaded pistols" on a table as if they were toys! I turned him into the guy who ran the range. He didn't take it well and was booted off of the range.

One more story.
--I was deployed to Kosovo in 1999 and witnessed a Special Forces "cool guy" discharge his weapon into the ground. He was sitting on some steps outside of a building looking cool with his weapon across his lap and resting on his knee. He was tapping the trigger with his hand. I remember thinking, "how careless". I didn't say anything and then about 10 seconds after I passed, BAM! It scared the crap out of me. I screamed *** dude! He was very apologetic. You can imagine the chaos that insued after a shot being fired inside of the camp.

 

[heron]

What is that saying about motorcycle riders:"There are those that have gone down, and those that will go down".

This reminds me of something else I heard about motorcycles, which also applies to firearms: When you stop being afraid of it, that's when you get in trouble.

 

[jlbraun]

This reminds me of something else I heard about motorcycles, which also applies to firearms: When you stop being afraid of it, that's when you get in trouble.
heron is offline Report Post

It also applies to skiing. I jump off of unreasonably sized cliffs on skis and am working up to doing flips and spins off of them.

Once, I was standing on top of an 18-footer at Vail and checking out the landing. Now, I know darn near every cliff at Vail under 20', but I didn't know this one. I could hear my reptile brain going "The landing is sweet! Do it!" and my monkey brain going "Dude, you've never hit this cliff before, why not check it out at the bottom first?"

As I'm standing there, a snowboarder comes up behind me and asks me how it is. I say I don't know, and that I'm going around because I don't know the snow cover at the bottom. I go around, and he hucks it. There is 6" of snow on top of sharp pointy rocks at the bottom. Broke his damn tailbone.

My ex-headache also saw a guy die right in front of her going off a 40' cliff at Jackson Hole - because he didn't know the snow had hardened up overnight.

So I'm equally careful with guns. If I'm going to dryfire, unload, lock slide open, and stick finger in chamber every time I pick one up.

 

[Heywood Case]

Like Nematocyst-870 I've found that experience in climbing helps in the practice of gun safety. In my case it's resulted in the adoption of my "fifth rule": You must continuously monitor and evaluate your practice of the four primary rules. A knot that is triple checked can still become loose an hour later. A gun that has been triple checked can be loaded by someone else while you aren't paying attention. Fatigue can creep up on you if you aren't monitoring yourself.

Pax's post reminds me of a great resource for climbers put out by the American Alpine Club; it's an annual booklet called Accidents in North American Mountaineering. They present detailed accounts and analysis of all the accidents they can compile in a year. It's grim reading but the lessons learned there are the reason I'm able to type this message today (interestingly, one of the most common factors there is also distraction). It seems to me that the compilation of this kind of information is a really valuable service that is worth continuing and extending. Examples of the ANAM reports can be seen at: http://www.americanalpineclub.org/pages/page/73#u4. I bet something like this could be extended to situations like hunting and personal defense as well. Or has this already been done?

John