Man Killed by Negligent Discharge at Gun Range

[Poper]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...egligent-discharge-at-houston-area-gun-range/

I haven't seen this one posted yet, so here it is.
I can't imagine ANYONE working in a gunshop that could be so careless!

range employee, who was reportedly working on a hunting rifle, discharged the gun, sending a round through a building wall and striking the unidentified customer as he was walking across the parking lot

My condolences to the young man's family.
What a terrible tragedy!

 

[jmr40]

Lots of conclusion jumping.

It may prove to be negligence on someone, maybe not. Not nearly enough facts in the story. The article hints that it may have been a Remington 700. I know from personal experience that the 700's CAN discharge with no trigger pull. It usually happens when you move the safety. And on older guns you have to move the safety in order to open the action to check to see if the gun is loaded. If the customer brought in a loaded gun, and if this happened it is hard to blame the gun store employee for the discharge. There would be nothing he could have done to prevent it. To date there have been somewhere 5000-10,000 incidents documented. No telling how many not documented. I never notified Remington. Just replaced the trigger.

There is no safe direction to have an AD.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

"There is safe direction to have an AD."



Sure there is. It's called a clearing box/tube. There are both ranges and LGS locally here that have them and they are used every time someone brings in a firearm that's not on their person.

The 'smith should have never been working on a loaded gun.

 

[B0bert]

Can't blame the employee? Isn't "always have the gun pointed in a safe direction" One of the rules of gun safety? I realize this can't always be true, but it should be true if you are clearing the weapon.

 

[Riomouse911]

Yup, guns certainly will fire through walls, roofs, raised floors, etc. It is ALWAYS a safe practice to have unknown-if-loaded firearms pointing in a clearing barrel, or pointed at a Kevlar clearing pad if no barrel is available, until they are cleared and unloaded.

This appears to be completely unintentional, I really feel for both the gunsmith and the victim and his family members.

 

[Robert]

Terrible things happen everyday with firearms, but that does not make them a suitable topic for discussion for THR. A firearm alone is not enough and others have pointed out there appears to be little information to go on and a lot of speculation. Which we don't do.