What can we do as a community to reduce negligent discharges?

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Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
I recently came across this video of a guy catching hot brass down his shirt who then goes on to negligently discharge his firearm towards a range employee sweeping brass behind him TWICE! (See: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/04/12/double-negligent-discharges/)

Every gun forum I've ever seen preaches the four rules religiously. Most gun ranges have at least the four rules and usually twenty more. On the plus side, unintentional firearms injuries are around 17,000-18,000 a year in a country with over 300 million firearms and 100 million gun-owning households. So, clearly safety efforts are working for the most part... but what can be done, if anything, to reach more people?
 
Training is the most valuable single point to safety.

How to get everyone to attend a GOOD training course is the issue. The vast majority of folks go buy a gun and NEVER seek any training with it.

How many time ON THIS FORUM have we heard guys asking advise about shooting that clearly indicate they have not received any professional training in the art of shooting.
 
Don't allow negligent people to handle guns. Handling guns takes focus and a mind set. As an Instructor, I have seen it time and time again after I make the point of never muzzling anyone with a gun, I handle them a SIRT training gun and within a couple of seconds they have it pointing at me or another student. It is a great training example but would be extremely uncomfortable, to say the least, if it were a real pistol.

Same thing applies to hot brass down the shirt/blouse/shoe/between the toes. Training and discipline to keep the gun down range. I always teach to either put the gun down on the shooting bench or keep it down range with the shooting hand and with the support hand, grab the hot brass away from the body thru the shirt. Put the gun down and the brass will have cooled enough to deal with it being very careful not to let that brass continue its journey down and into the pants.
 
Encourage training that reenforces the concepts of redundancy and incremental improvement.

Redundancy- the idea that a single action or system may not be enough to guarantee the outcome you desire.

Maybe a manual safety adds some redundancy to the draw and reholster processes. Most current fad trainers disagree because under stress their students fail to disengage the manual safety. They the have failures to execute a shot in class and students don't feel amazing. Removing the manual safety from the process reduces the training requirement. Therefore more students pass. What did they pass? Defensive carry is 99% carry and administrative handling. They need to be better at that too. In those tasks, the manual safety makes the students more successful.

They say....keep your finger off the trigger. Is It always the shooter's finger that fires the gun? Not with an nd.

I say.....ever pass your turn when driving? What's the matter? Don't know how to drive? ...or did other situational stressors cause you to miss your turn.

Incremental improvement- Does every student have to draw and hit com in 1.5s in a 300 rnd class or can you teach them the skills and methods to train to reach their goals incrementally? In a class that drives you to a certain skill quickly, what is the maintenance program? How do I refine that skill? The best skills are built in a cross training methodology.
Look at top athletes. The best built skills on the home court/field and then matured them through match stress until they got to the pro level. This is most apparent in us soccer. Guys from the USA are great, but generally over coached. Guys like Messi built skill on the playground where tricks, fakes and opponents falling over drew rewards. Over coached guys got their rewards from being in position on a grid and executing the pass the coach saw available.
 
One of the first things I prepare folks for if I am training them is that they will have hot brass end up down their shirt, in between their shooting glasses, in their cleavage, on their toes if wearing open toed shoes etc. etc. etc. I might not happen today but shoot enough and it will happen. Brass is HOT, I usually have them handle a piece of just fired brass. I then tell them “When this does happen you are to CALMLY put the firearm down facing downrange, then and only the may you dance around like a lunatic. Besides a brass hickey is a shooting badge of honor. “
 
I think we should work harder to police our own. As an employee at 3 different shops over the last 6 years, I’m always astounded at the lifelong gun owners who still don’t seem to understand the four basic safety rules. I can’t count the number of times a customer will talk about all the guns he owns and how long he’s been shooting, and then the first thing he does when I hand him a gun is casually rest his finger on the trigger and keep it there.

To me, that’s the single most important safety rule: Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you’re aimed in and ready to fire. And it’s also the rule I see people disregard the most.

If you’re handling firearms with someone who doesn’t follow that rule and keeps their finger inside the trigger guard, call them out on it. And if they continue to do it, don’t handle or shoot firearms around that person anymore.

I’m a very friendly, customer-service-oriented gun shop employee, and I used to be more reticent to call people out on it, especially old men who have been shooting for years. But I’m getting more and more annoyed by it these days. At this point, I don’t care if you were an infantryman in Vietnam and a cop for 30 years, if I hand you a gun and you immediately put your finger inside the trigger guard and keep it there, I’m going to (tactfully) call you on it.
 
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I guess just keep emphasizing the four rules. Tell folk they apply to EVERYBODY and they apply ALL THE TIME whether you are new to shooting or an experienced shooter and they apply EVERY PLACE be it the shooting range, out in the wild, in your basement or your buddy's living room.

The last is because we had a state pistol champ speak at our club once long ago and he said that as he was leaving his buddy's home the buddy said

"I forgot to show you my new 1911!"

The buddy leaves the room comes back with the 1911 and says

"Check out the trigger on this baby!"

The pistol champ takes the 1911 points it at the bright screen of the TV in the living room and blows away an RCA 25" color console. The buddy's wife watching the show at the time was quite impressed but not in a good way. (Plus back then, when a show was over it was over until the summer reruns.)

Long story short? I do wonder about negligent discharges. The thing is, LEO's and people right here on the forum with way, way more shooting experience than I have, have had negligent discharges. So what hope do I have of getting through this sport without having one myself?
 
* Training
* Situational Awareness (where's your gun, what's the gun status, where's the bee about to sting you / curb you're about to trip over, etc)
* Keep your finger off the trigger until...
* "One (or two but not three) and your done" / treat it like a DUI
 
So what hope do I have of getting through this sport without having one myself?
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Understand that 'hope' is not enough.

The four absolutes are a must, and never pick up a firearm without remembering that you can not make mistakes with them. Every one of us has to take it that seriously, every time.

Firearms, ammunition, magazines, innocent bystanders, personal property, etc. do not accept excuses or mistakes.
 
You are fighting against the well known problem of human error. We can try to design against affordances in mechanisms. Those are designs which draw you into making a mistake. A gun has one in that its design naturally draws you to place your finger on the trigger. You can't really undo that in a useful gun design IMHO.

You can insist on training - but what level is insisting to be on? Mandatory for gun ownership - RKBA seizure and hissy fit prose on that idea.

You can just do your best when dealing with new shooters. At matches, we carefully monitor such folks. For the guy with a Judge in his jockey shorts draw - what to do?

I read that about 45 cops have been killed by other cops playing quick draw at the station.

It's like cars. I've had 4 serious accidents that I survived (but not without serious injuries) due to stupidity and liquor on the other drivers' fault. How do we stop that?

I guess I'm coming down to there is little to do except train those we can, unless we ban and confiscate guns (great plan?).
 
45Gunner said:
Don't allow negligent people to handle guns.
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.........kinda the whole idea behind gun control.
Just sayin'.


As a community, all we can do is to offer instruction to those new to the sport. I do it all the time as a Hunter Safety instructor. The thing is, after that, we need to rely upon those individuals to be responsible with their gun handling. While some states do require proof of training for the purchase of a hunting license or for a CWC permit, I don't know of anywhere that requires it just for gun ownership. Most of these are a one time training requirement and most are just a quick exposure to the basics. Responsible gun handling is an ongoing and perpetual thing. Problem is folks tend to get lazy or pococurante over time when it comes down to the 4 basic rules of gun safety. Some, even tho they were taught, never caught on. Like driving a car, we always need to be on the defensive when around others with a firearm in their hand, whether it be while hunting, at the range or just looking at it at home.
 
The thing is, LEO's and people right here on the forum with way, way more shooting experience than I have, have had negligent discharges. So what hope do I have of getting through this sport without having one myself?
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You will most likely have one. I have had 2. I'm not proud. I'm actually intensely pissed off at myself for those 2. Both were intentional, but negligent. I say that because both were while unloading a firearm. After the gun was unloaded, I pointed it in a safe direction and pulled the trigger. ...and the gun fired.

My point here is a single action cannot prevent an nd. Redundancy can keep you safe from an nd. In both cases, I had the finger off the trigger until on target, gun was pointed at a backstop. My failure to know the gun was loaded was safe because the gun was pointed at a safe backstop and I pulled the trigger while pointed at the safe backstop. I always drop the hammer by pulling the trigger after confirming a gun is unloaded for this reason. I still failed to know the condition of my gun.

Redundancy is your friend. This is why I would rather holster a 1911 than a Glock.
 
Years ago I shot at a State Range close to my home (3 miles) It is a big Range with a lot of benches to shoot from . After some real stupid crap I built my own range at home .
I have benches at 25 -50-100 and 200 yards .
Over the years my home range has paid for its self in gas savings .
 
People need to understand that the gun safety rules are about building proper habits.

When someone says that they don't need to exercise muzzle/trigger finger discipline because the gun is unloaded or because it's only an airgun, they are missing the point. They are ALWAYS important because doing them consistently builds proper habits that are designed to prevent property damage, injury or death.
 
People need to understand that the gun safety rules are about building proper habits.
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Well people need to understand a lot of things and someone saying they need to changes nothing. Sometimes known as wishful thinking. That and $10 will get you a cup of coffee almost anywhere in the world.

Its not human error, its human negligence. Best thing someone finally came up with was ND. Not a mistake, not an accident, pure downright negligence.

Its not that people don't read the rules at the gun range, they don't understand them (internalize). Kind of the difference between hearing and listening.

If guns were licensed you would lower the issues, but you would not stop them.

How many times do you read, X crashed and killed Y, X was driving without a license?

I alwyas thought it was a good question as to why its so common we don't do something about making sure X can't drive!

And correcting someone at the range gets you.

1. Thank you, I didn't realize that is what it meant. Call it about 40 %

2. Hostility
3. Attitude and get reported to the Range Officer (who then informs them that they did indeed violates the rules - which are there for everyone safety and you read and agreed to ) which usually then results in Attitude and Hostility.

Makes a compelling argument for minimum training (and testing ) and licensing requirements to me. But then I suspect the Founding Fathers assumed someone who bought a gun also knew how to use it (or were trained)
 
It has been said a few times......

"ya can't fix stupid"

Now, moving on......

As with so many other things in life, with larger numbers of people (just on general principle), there are going to be higher numbers of accidents. This is to be expected. If there were as many pilots as are drivers of automobiles, air travel would not be seen as the safest way to travel. THIS is what holds the world back from the Jetsons 'flying cars'.

My first thought when I read the OP was with computers/technology. We have all been told countless times to 'never open email that was unexpected or from unknown sources. But people do it anyway and get infected and hacked.

It's the same process with 'the oldest profession'. Countless warnings but people do it anyway.

It does make me wonder how many people reading this are not filtering out advertisements or Flash. We've all been warning about the dangers of using Flash. Not only will people refuse to remove it, they actually update it.

It's all the same thing.

Then there is the experienced hand that either gets careless one ill fated day in a mindset of 'taking it for granted' or thinks they are above it all and are so experienced and good that they no longer feel it necessary to 'play it safe'.

Negligent discharges are going to happen. But even knowing that, ANY and ALL firearm owners/operators still MUST observe wisdom and safety. Just simply because of the power in what these things can do.

Now, if people would learn to treat technology in general that same way.....

The world would see much less computer infection, hacking, ID theft, the massive spread of computer viruses, security breaches, and all around issues.

It isn't conspiracy theory or even simply my point of view. It is real. We all know it. We all see it. Lives are being destroyed because of it. Even if we don't quite understand it, we know it's there.

The only real question is:
What are you going to do to take care of yourself?

Because just like staying in your lane on the highway....the world is a safer (and happier) place when you are acting wisely, maturely, and responsibly for your own self protection and best interests (that includes the ones you love). The mindset that suggests 'government' will take care of everyone is what destroys that and actually turns the world into a more dangerous place.
 
Well people need to understand a lot of things and someone saying they need to changes nothing.
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Ok, let me rephrase so that my intent is stated explicitly.

What we, as the gun community, can do is to first understand that the gun safety rules are about building proper habits and to insure that we act accordingly. The second step is to teach that fact to those who are willing to learn.

There's not much that can be done for (or about) people who are unwilling to learn.
 
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