Unintentional discharge story

Accident/Negligent

larryh1108 said:
I had an AD the other day....

I walk to the safe part of the house and rack #1, rack #2 and all of a sudden the gun goes off! BANG! A tiny hole in the floor (nothing under the floor which is why I chose that area).
(edited for brevity and focus)
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The discharge is arguably accidental, being cause by a random, uncontrolled event. The hole in the floor is definitely negligent. The absence of a clearing barrel, or, at least, a bucket of sand was avoidable.

I am curious, was it the extractor hitting the rim of the cartridge that set it off, or the nose of the next cartridge hitting the rim of the chambered cartridge that set it off?

Lost Sheep.
 
It is my opinionthat it was the new round hitting theback of the round still in the chamber when the discharge occured. There was no marking of any kind on the rim to indicate anything hit it. If the tip of the new round pushed the tip of the extractor into the round still in the casing that would have done it as well but I do not see how a LRN tip can contact the tiny extractor claw with enough force but I am still amazed that it went off.

I was slingshottng the slide to try to simulate the force in a fired round and it slipped from my fingers when I saw that the casing did not extract.
 
In the first months after I bought my very first handgun (an XD40 Tac) I was sitting in my favorite chair after finishing my homework (yay college) and working on my trigger pull with a mag stuffed with five snap caps. Since I lived in a craptacular part of town, I had a mag of 155gr XTP on the floor next to me. Someone called me, and I popped the mag out, racked the slide, collected the ejected snap cap and stuffed it back in the mag, then dropped the mag on the floor before I answered. We talk for some time, and when I hang up, I grab a mag off the floor and quickly slam it home and rack the slide. Thankfully I heard the distinctly different sound of the 155gr XTP going into the chamber! I cleared the weapon and locked it back in its case and gave myself a HUGE mental scolding. Since that day, I have NEVER done snap cap practice with any mags of live ammo in the same room. I also double and triple check while I'm doing snap cap practice.

And one example of me doing the right thing. I was at my buddy's apartment, and he was in the shower. I ask if I can play with his M&P9, he says sure. As soon as I pick it up I clear it. Out pops a mag of Gold Dots and one in the chamber. Had I just picked it up and pulled the trigger, his neighbors would have been very upset with me or very dead.

All guns are always loaded!
 
I ask if I can play with his M&P9, he says sure.
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Well, you certainly did the right thing but your buddy was incredibly negligent by, minimally, not advising you that his weapon was fully loaded. It is my opinion that he should never have permitted you to handle his weapon until he personally cleared and inspected it before handing it to you with the magazine out and the slide locked back.
 
im sorry it is not my responsibility as a gun owner to tell you my weapon is loaded. all guns are loaded. if you don't think it is, then that is your negligence. why would you take my word for it anyway???
 
im sorry it is not my responsibility as a gun owner to tell you my weapon is loaded. all guns are loaded. if you don't think it is, then that is your negligence. why would you take my word for it anyway???
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Who said you should "take my word for it"? I certainly didn't. And who said that some people are immune from assuming that all guns are loaded? Again, not me. Firearm owners do have responsibilities that go beyond just assuming that everybody else "knows the rules". It's why people selling guns at retail establishments or at gun shows clear a weapon and demonstrate it to be safe before handing it over to somebody "who should know better". It's not a perfect world and I think that we as responsible gun owners should go beyond the "standard" safety rules if need be to assure the safe handling of firearms, particularly it they're our firearms.

And, in this context, I stand by my original position: If I'm in the shower or otherwise preoccupied and a friend (I don't care if he was Jeff Cooper) came over to visit and found my loaded weapon and inquired if it'd be alright to handle it, you can be darn sure he would be advised that the gun was loaded and probably would be instructed not to handle it until I personally was present. Nothing wrong with exercising good common sense-even if it does go beyond the call of duty.
 
Things like what happened in this post are the very reason I NEVER load a gun in my home. Unless that gun is specifically for HD.

My children understand that ALL of my gun's and ANY gun they ever see is to be treated as if it's loaded and the safety is off.
 
Unintentional
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, yea what ever .:barf:

As others have said it was a negligent discharge

And that only .

Wait till ya put a hole in the roof with your AR , thinking your to smart to check the chamber ..........LOUD . That was my NEGLIGENT discharge .
 
coverbuster,

Your story was indeed a NEGLIGENT discharge. (Can we stop screeching now, please?)

There are other types of unintentional discharges other than the purely negligent.

1) Reckless. This is worse than "negligent" (as in "I neglected to follow the Four Rules") behavior. It's behavior that is actively STUPID, like deliberately pointing the gun at your buddy and pulling the trigger just to get a laugh. That's not just negligent, that's reckless. The gun handler didn't just neglect to follow the rules; he actively broke the rules on purpose.

2) Purely negligent. That's where one or more of the Four Rules is neglected or ignored, but not deliberately. A common lament afterward: "But I checked it!" This, too, may result in crippling injury or death; the difference is that the gun-handler was making a good faith effort to follow the rules as he understood them, but either his understanding or his ability was lacking. He had a brain fart and he neglected to follow one or more of the rules.

3) Purely accidental. This is what happens when something mechanical breaks inside the firearm and a shot is fired without any gun-handling mistakes being part of the equation. Nobody gets hurt because the gun was deliberately pointed in a safe direction. No human finger touched the trigger.

4) A mix of 'accident' and 'negligent.' For instance, some years back there was a tragic story in the news about a woman who was hunting with her family. They returned to the camp from the morning hunt and she went to unload her Remington 700. As she offed the safety and began to open the action, the gun fired. Her finger was definitely NOT on the trigger; the mechanical defect that caused the shot to fire without the trigger being touched was obvious to the gunsmith upon examination after the fact. So far, pure accident & no negligence. Except for this: she had allowed the muzzle to point in an unsafe direction while she handled the firearm, even though her finger was not on the trigger. The shot traveled through the family's horse trailer and came to rest inside the body of her 9-year-old son, who died in her arms shortly afterward. A terrible, terrible thing. Preventable if she had followed ALL FOUR of the safety rules. Unfortunately, the event had elements of the purely accidental (an unforseeable mechanical happenstance) as well as human negligence. And a child died for it.

In the story that started this thread, the gun handlers were NOT negligent. They were observers at an accidental, unintentional discharge. No one was hurt because they followed all four of the safety rules -- even when no one's finger was on the trigger.

pax
 
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There are other types of unintentional discharges other than the purely negligent.
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Sorry , but your WRONG pax . .

she went to unload her Remington 700. As she offed the safety and began to open the action, the gun fired.
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A 700 does not need the safety off to open the bolt , so you lost this one .

was obvious to the gunsmith upon examination after the fact.
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Yea , hubby was playing home gunsmith and decided to " tune " the trigger . If it did this once it did it more than once , FACT .

Negligent .
 
Wait a minute, let me check the wording from the news article. Here it is... Oh, better still -- I have the press release from Remington.

Courtesy, NAHC

The Remington Arms Company is offering to modify a bolt lock on 2.5 million of its rifles following the accidental shooting death of a 9-year-old Montana boy, the company announced last week.

The modification program is being offered to owners of all Remington bolt-action rifles manufactured before 1982.

Remington says that the program was initiated in part as a response to the death of Gus Barber, who was accidentally shot by his mother in October 2000, as she was unloading her Remington 700 bolt-action rifle.

The Barber family says that the presence of a bolt-lock mechanism required Barbara Barber to release the safety in order to open the bolt to eject the chambered round. Immediately upon releasing the safety, the rifle unexpectedly discharged. Barber says that her finger was not on the gun’s trigger.

Remington is offering to replace the bolts and clean and inspect the rifles for $20 each. The rifles will then be returned with a $20 coupon toward the purchase of Remington products, the company announced on its Web site.

For more information, visit www.remington.com/Safety_Modification_Program/remington_safety.htm.
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So, no, I am not mistaken about the need for the Remington 700 of that vintage needing its safety disengaged before opening the bolt. Nor am I mistaken about the mechanical malfunction of the firearm involved -- which did not involve a home job on the trigger, but was actually part of the design of the firearm as it came from the factory.

Nor am I mistaken about the mom's negligence in allowing the firearm to point at her own child while she unloaded it. Pointing the firearm in a dangerous direction was negligent. The shot firing when no finger was on the trigger was accident or happenstance. The confluence of events was a tragedy.

Guns should not fire when nobody is pulling the trigger. If they do, something is wrong. I hope we agree on that much.

Oh, here's another report of a similar malfunction in the same firearm type, a Rem 700 of the same era: http://www.thehighroad.us/showthread.php?t=267562

pax
 
MLeake ~

Hard to figure out why Remington recalled all those rifles. That guy sure must have been one busy home gunsmith! :D

pax
 
So, no, I am not mistaken about the need for the Remington 700 of that vintage needing its safety disengaged before opening the bolt. Nor am I mistaken about the mechanical malfunction of the firearm involved -- which did not involve a home job on the trigger, but was actually part of the design of the firearm as it came from the factory.
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No, you are most certainly not mistaken. Up until the early eighties, all Remington 700s were equipped with two-position safeties that required you to move the safety to "fire" in order to unload it. This concept in itself is not inherently unsafe as many, many other bolt-action rifles were made the same way (as were all pre-Mark Ruger 77s) but may be described as a little less forgiving if firearm safety rules are not strictly observed. However, any time a firearm fires without the trigger being touched, something is either broken or worn out or the design is at fault. In the case of Remington, apparently the design was the culprit.

Subsequent 700s are made with two-position safeties that allow you to unload the rifle with the safety on "safe". The drawback to this approach is that the bolt is not "locked" closed when on safe and during a hunt can be inadvertently "unlocked", making the rifle impossible to fire and, if the hunter doesn't see the unlocked condition, it could cost him/her a trophy animal or a winter's supply of meat.

Imo, the best safety configuration is the three-position design as found on all Winchester Model 70s, the Ruger Mark series, the Savage Model 110 and others. This design allows the shooter to unload the rifle while on "safe" (the second position) and still locks the bolt closed while on "safe" (the first position). The third position is, of course, the "fire" position.
 
Nor am I mistaken about the mom's negligence in allowing the firearm to point at her own child
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SEE told ya , it was a NEGLIGENT discharge . That pax was my point , thanks for proving it :eek:

I may be mistaken on the saftey issue , I will go find some older 700's and check this out .
 
One detail that seems to be getting glossed over...

... is that the bullet passed through a horse trailer prior to striking the child.

What I'm getting at is that the mother:

1) probably couldn't have seen the 9yo on the other side of the trailer;
2) may have had reason to think the child was NOT on the other side of the trailer;
3) may have previously checked that direction as the safest way to point the muzzle during unloading, and it may have been until moments before the incident - kids tend to run around a lot;
4) may have thought the trailer was the best backstop in the area, assuming no horses were in it (though I kind of doubt this one; she probably didn't want to risk damage to the trailer).

For that matter, the direction of flight of the bullet could have deflected from its minimum 2 hits (each side wall) on the trailer, so the bullet may not have been aligned with the muzzle when it actually hit the child. (Minor point; first, it may have stayed straight, and second, it wasn't a good sector for the muzzle to point).

My point is that while it was negligent to point the muzzle at the trailer, and while it was negligent to lose track of a child while handling a firearm, it may not have been grossly negligent. EG she may have thought her son was in the other direction, with his dad, because that's where he had last been before she started putting her gear away. So yes, she was negligent, but there are some mitigating factors.

For those who will still scream: SHE WAS NEGLIGENT - yes, she was, but if you have kids, or have been around kids, you'll know that it only takes a moment's loss of situational awareness. I, for one, can't claim that something like this could never happen to me. It hasn't, and I pray it never does, and I will do my best to ensure it never does - but I'm not going to point my finger at this mother.
 
Note to Coverbuster

Maybe you should have checked out the safety issue before accusing a dead child's dad of rigging a dangerous trigger.

We're not supposed to fling insults about on the forum, so I won't. But frankly, I think you deserve some.
 
Coverbuster ~

For the sake of accuracy, let me try one more time. I'll let you have the last word.

1) The actual discharge was an accident. That is, it was a mechanical malfunction. The gun was broken. The shot fired without anyone touching the trigger, a fact that was NOT reasonably foreseeable under the circumstances. That makes the discharge itself an accident.

2) The direction the muzzle was pointed at the moment the shot fired was negligence. As MLeake said, it may not have been grossly negligent, but it was negligent. She neglected to follow one of the Four Rules and allowed the muzzle to point at something she was absolutely unwilling to shoot.

Now, back to the post that bothered you so much, Coverbuster. I said that some unintentional discharges had elements of both accident and negligence. These are cases where the gun breaks or has some other type of unforeseeable mechanical problem, but there's also something else going on, a violation of one or more of the four rules. I've proved that by citing this case, one that got thousands of Remington rifles recalled because of a poor design. This case has both elements, a broken gun that discharged by happenstance (accident), and an element of human negligence that allowed that discharge to take a young boy's life. Both accident and negligence are present.

And I'm also standing by my analysis that the guy who wrote the PM that started this thread was an observer or participant in a purely accidental discharge, one that had absolutely no component of human negligence.

pax
 
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not fun at all

Once apon a time i was the guy that said "that only happens to morons" i belived it would never happen to me, took every percaution there is to make sure it didnt happen, never left a weapon loaded or chambered, kept my finger off the triger, always checked my chamber........and then it did!

i woke up one normal morning around 8am........made 2 pots of coffee, took a shower like any day, and decided since ihad been at the range the day before with my new pistol *taurus pt 9mm* that i should clean it.
I removed it from my range bag, took out both mags from the bag, unloaded both 15rnds per mag, set the rounds on the table, cleaned out the mags. picked up the pistol in my left hand, racked the slide back to eject anything inside, let the slide go forward. just like i always had, like clockwork. grasped the grip with all 5 fingers *finger well away from the trigger* , looked down at my laptop and BAM! ...128g hollow point came out of the barrel.....went through my entertainment center, and into my neighbors appartment *thank god noone was hurt*

Honestly i was shocked, scared, stunned. i thought to myself "who's shooting!" then i realised the gun was on the floor, and there was glass everywhere and i realised IM SHOOTING.....but wait..., i ran over to see if everyone was ok, wich they were......im now being charged with class C felony reckless conduct........and to this very day, i dont know what happened. i never keep a round in the chamber, both mags were full so one didnt accidentally strip off, my finger wasnt on the trigger, and i remember racking the slide to clear it.......maybe my shooting buddy left a round in there, maybe the ejector didnt grasp the shell.......did the hammer lock slip and drop it.........honestly......i dont know......but now........im scared to load any of my weapons, and the sound of a gun firing makes me jump......

the point.......never belive it wont happen to you, not every discharge is neglegent or reckless........and treat every firearm like its not only loaded , but locked at the same time
 
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