what are your experiences with a firearm taking a life.

I was 18 years old when I was deployed. I know the damage a firearm can do when used by a determined individual. And I wish to leave it at that.
 
this all just dawned on me because of a discussion on another forum about how useless a magazine disconnect saftey is, if firearms had MDS back when i was growing up my friend may not have shot himself.
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Don't know how old you are, but semi-auto pistol magazine disconnectors have been around for many, many decades (since at least the 1930's). Several mainstream weapons have featured them...the Browning Hi-Power & Star BM series to name but a few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_disconnect#Magazine_disconnects

Your friend picked the trigger lock on a revolver. The magazine disconnector on many semi-auto pistols is even simpler to defeat.

With all due respect to your deceased friend...the revolver he killed himself with (accidentally or deliberately) was never designed to accept magazines and thus, could not have benefited from such a safety device.

Your statement is akin to saying that passenger wear of parachutes would reduce drunk driving automobile deaths. :confused:

Sorry 'bout your friend.
 
I guess I’ve had two experiences where a shooting with a firearm has affected me. I had a pistol stolen from me by a family member that was hurting for cash, about 15 years ago. Sold on the street. I reported it of course. A few months later I got a telephone call from a large city police department, they found my pistol. It was used in a shooting at a convenience store. I asked if someone got hurt or killed with it, and the cop said that he’d rather not answer. I took that to mean someone did get killed with it. I recovered my pistol then sold it.

20+ years ago my Aunt put the muzzle of a .30/30 in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Very strange, no one knew she was having problems.
 
Work related, I've seen many gun related deaths and injuries.
Here is just one story. A Border Patrol agent was heading to his duty area when he drove by a really small highway rest stop. It is just a pullout on the side of the road with a couple of picnic tables with their own barbeque pits. He stopped and saw a man with his arm and head hanging out of the driver door window. So when he stopped, he found a deceased elderly gentleman hooked up to an oxygen tank with an apparent self inflicted wound. I can't remember from where it came from but there was a coagulated mound of blood on the ground next to the door, possibly having dripped from the man's mouth. The agent also found a family of about 6 enjoying their family cookout about 100' away. How this family didn't see this scene, it is strange.
 
Having been in combat and did my duty I will only say this..... Its not a subject I care to comment on other than to say I did my duty, I do not regret it nor would I encourage anyone to take it lightly.
 
If you're only going to talk about how the OP worded the title, don't post.
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No, it's a very important distinction. "A firearm taking a life" is a bit misleading. Better wording would have been "a life taken with a firearm." The former is the sort of wording our opponents love to use.

Personally, I've seen one homicide and two suicides, one of which I had to help with the aftermath. I know what bullets do the the human body, and I always worry for the chest-beating slogan-slinging John Wayne wannabes who don't.
 
One has to wonder why the question was raised, and in the manner it was done. Many of us have had some direct or near direct connection with someone who was killed by a firearm. Many of us have the same connection with someone who was killed by a car.

Quite a few of us have also had some connection to someone who was killed by their own stupidity.

I fail to see what good it does to discuss how this or that person died, without a specific point.

this all just dawned on me because of a discussion on another forum about how useless a magazine disconnect saftey is, if firearms had MDS back when i was growing up my friend may not have shot himself.
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The friend you mentioned used a revolver, any thoughts about a magazine disconnect are completely irrelvant to the incident.

Personally, I am ambivalent about magazine dissconnects. People can say they "save lives", but guess what, not pointing loaded guns at oneself or others and pulling the trigger saves lives just as much, if not more. Come to think on it, I'm sure a lot more.

GUNS NEVER take lives all by themselves..Ever. There is ALWAYS a person involved, either directly operating it, or allowing it to be operated by someone who does not know or understand safety.

I am against trigger locks, and particularly against the way many people think they make guns "safe". I think it is an act of colossal idiocy to put a lock on a loaded gun. And when not loaded, guns are only awkward clubs.

I don't want to get into a full scale rant, but this subject often sets me off on one. Lock up the gun in something. Lock up the ammo in something else. But be aware that people who are determined to harm themself or others will find a way.
 
I know what bullets do the the human body, and I always worry for the chest-beating slogan-slinging John Wayne wannabes who don't.
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I like that quote.

I was a police officer from 1981 until 2010 when I retiried as a Sgt on a disability. From 1997 until 2008, I was also on our county Drug Task Force entry team. We had also started a county SWAT team and I was fortunate enough to have been a part of that as well.

Back in 1985 I had to shoot & kill a man who had been shooting a Remington 760 .308 and was threatening his family. This was outside when he aimed the gun at me. The coroner's jury deliberated I think 14 minutes before it was ruled it justifiable. It didn't bother me that I had killed the guy because he was trying to kill me & make my kids grow up without a daddy. But it bothered me that his family had to bury a son and brother. I felt real bad for them, not him.

We've also seen dozens of suicides by firearms and without exception, we've always felt terrible for the surviving family members. Contact shotgun blasts inside the mouth have to be seen to be believed. And when a family member is the first to find that or see that, it can wreck that person for the rest of their life.

What I'm trying to say is that every so often, we run across someone who seems to act like or talk as if they can't wait to get into a shooting sometime. Oh nobody hardly ever comes right out & says that, but you can tell that some people are secretly wishing for a chance.....But it's nothing at all like you see on TV. The aftermath is just about always, without exception, devastating to the family of those involved. It leaves deep and lasting emotional scars on those close to anyone involved.

Still, I'm a huge advocate of responsible gun ownership. How many horrific events were PREVENTED by responsible people owning a firearm?

Guns aren't in and of themselves bad. It's the mind & the intentions of the person holding one that determines how that firearm will be handled or used.
Can't blame the gun.....
 
not trying to go twilight zone as I revive this cool thread but

1)
GUNS NEVER take lives all by themselves..Ever. There is ALWAYS a person involved, either directly operating it, or allowing it to be operated by someone who does not know or understand safety.
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I tend to agree with your post, BUT stranger things have happened.


2) Also, to the other guy who spoke about not posting if based on the title or whatnot:

there is a reason why I have not posted in this thread until now...I can only be an observer and learner in this thread, as my lack of experiences force this issue.
 
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