Navy Seal gives us a sad reminder about gun safety

[prefetch]

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/07/4170524/navy-seal-dies-after-accidentally.html

The Associated Press
Published: Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012 - 5:58 pm
SAN DIEGO -- Navy officials have confirmed that a Navy SEAL who accidentally shot himself in the head has died.

Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Frank Magallon tells the U-T San Diego (http://bit.ly/ycqw4O) that Petty Officer 3rd Class Gene "Geno" Clayont, Jr. was taken off life support on Saturday. He is survived by his parents and three sisters.

San Diego police were called on Thursday after the accident. Police say Clayton had gone to a bar and brought a woman back to his apartment and was showing her guns when he put a pistol to his head, believing it was unloaded, and pulled the trigger.

Paramedics took Clayton to a San Diego hospital where he was placed on life support.

 

[beatledog7]

Tragic, and so avoidable.

 

[rcmodel]

Good grief!

I guess even SEAL training can't fix coming home drunk from a bar with a "lady", and showing her your gun isn't loaded.
By blowing your brains out.

I want to comment further.
But that would be even less THR then what I already said.

rc

 

[Win73]

Tragic, and so avoidable.

Just goes to show what booze can do for you. Another good reason to stay out of bars.

 

[Yosemite Sam]

Good grief!

I guess even SEAL training can't fix coming home drunk from a bar with a "lady", and showing her your gun isn't loaded.
By blowing your brains out.

I want to comment further.
But that would be even less THR then what I already said.

rc

I'm thinking the same thing, rcmodel. What's tragic is that the same story plays itself over and over: guys showing off guns to their girls. I think this happened in 2010 in St. Louis too. Including putting gun to head and pulling trigger after mentioning it was unloaded.

 

[Win73]

That's why there is no such thing as an unloaded gun.

 

[gunnutery]

RC you said it very plainly but perfectly.

My prayers go out to his family and the girl that had to witness it.

 

[gspn]

That girl is going to have nightmares for a long time. Sad and so avoidable.:banghead:

 

[Aiko492]

It has all been said, booze and guns do not mix. Unless he passed in the last day or so, he was fighting for his life last I read. Did not want to throw the towel in on him if he was still hanging in.

 

[TexasRifleman]

Very sad. My question is, are women actually moved by this whole act of putting a gun to one's head? I can't imagine anyone would think that's impressive. You would think that the opposite result would happen, that the woman would immediately decide this is someone who should not reproduce.

 

[Birch Knoll]

I have a hard time considering an act of such transcendent stupidity to be sad. As Heinlein said:

“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”​

 

[Zombiphobia]

I see 'A Navy SEAL who accidentally shot himself in the head'.... wow. An expert in the use of weapons accidentally shot himself in the head???

No sympathy here, he was a moron. Even idiots sometimes make it into elite military units. Good riddance. My condolences to his friends and family, but we're better off without his type in our military. If he could accidentally shoot himself in the head, what's to keep him from accidentally calling an airstrike on the wrong part part of a city, or accidentally shooting the wrong person in a hostage-rescue, or accidentally arming a grenade still attached to his vest killing his whole friggin team?

You gotta be a talented sort of stupid to accidentally shoot yourself above the legs, period, let alone the head, he must have been aiming carefully...

edit: oh I see he put it to his head, so he DID do it on purpose. To impress a female. I dunno how they do things in the Navy but in the Army we're preached to and preched to about NOT trying too hard to impress anyone other than the guy grading our performances during training sessions as the only confidence boosters we need are the 'good job' of the training cadre and the promotions and occasional medals/awards/ribbons/devices etc.. that may come with our good performance.

 

[12gaugeTim]

How can you not find that sad? Was it stupid? Very! Am I sympathetic towards his parents and sister? Very! How about the girl that stood in front of him and asked him to put the guns up, causing him to demonstrate that they were "unloaded"? I can imagine a guilt complex in addition to an unerasable, terrible memory. It's an utter tragedy. An utterly stupid tragedy but a tragedy nevertheless.

 

[Zombiphobia]

what's sad to me is this caliber of soldier is allowed into Special Operations forces. As I said, my condolences to his friends and family, but we're better off without him. It takes a talented sort of stupid to do what he did.

 

[12gaugeTim]

I find it hard to believe that his death could be considered a good thing by any one of the members here. That's just disgusting.

 

[bushmaster1313]

Navy Seal is dead.
I thank him for his service to our Country.
Even if he did a stupid thing that cost him his life, our Nation is diminshed by his death.

 

[Keb]

People rack their autoloaders to inspect for an empty chamber. Then they release the slide and load it. All because they forget to drop the loaded magazine first.

 

[BleysAhrens]

My Navy is a safer place with out this guy in it. I don't know about anyone else, but I remember idiots who would pull there sidearm just to look at it and eject the cartridge and reload it all while hanging out in there work-center on the ship. I did 2 years In-port Security on a carrier, and believe me, we got all kinds of crazies not caring what the chief warrant yelled at them while qualifying on a weapon. So I'm not happy about it, but I'm not gonna fly a flag for him either.

 

[opsman]

I feel for his family those that knew him and most of all that poor girl whom he obviously was trying to impress. As Ron White put it "You can't cure stupid"

With that being said I find it very disturbing reading the comments of one of the members here, have some respect for your fellow man. Glad your not in the Army now. You certainly have the right to your opinon, but in light of the situation comments such as those are not appropriate.

 

[csa77]

i truly feel bad for his family. though im shocked that this guy made it as a seal. i mean really how stupid do you have to be to do that, drunk or not. yeah lets prove a gun unloaded by putting it to your head. he certainly earned his Darwin award.

 

[Zombiphobia]

yes they are appropriate. regardless of what he did under orders, this action automatically wins him a 1st place gold metal darwin award.

Sure, thanks for service and all, but he was an imbecile, and as a result, a person is now traumatized and he's dead.

All those countless hours of weapon safety.. *le sigh*. Those safety lectures are repeated over and over and over and we practice checking our weapons over and over and over so that it is imbedded into our subconsious to prevent crap like this.

I've done some dumb things with firearms and had some really dumb negligent dishcharges, but NOT TO MY FRICKIN HEAD!!!! Not to impress anyone. Not to prove anything.... screw what his services were he was still an idiot!!!

In light of the situation my comments are extra appropriate to help others realize what a dumb move this was, and this action of negligent suicide commited by a professional warrior.. in an act of plain jane STUPIDITY to get his dong played with. I'm sorry.. but b4 this gets cleared for being insensitive I hope anyone reading can pull their head from keister long enough to think 'yup what an imbecile... how does a SEAL, a pro warrior, a weapons expert do soemthing like this.. by being DUMB." Keep that in mind and put sentiment aside until you can understand what a DUMB move this was on HIS part and now how emotionall and psychologically traumatized a civilian is goign to be for the rest of her life.. because he acted DUMB and blew his brains out in front of her trying to be cool. His position in as an elite military warrior does, in no way whatsoever excuse that, it makes the situation 1,000 times worse. He should receive a post-husmously awarded medal of stupidity. If this were the dumb ass olympics, he just won gold, silver AND bronze!!!

Whatever his position was should not take away from how STUPID his actions were.

Respect for my fellow man? I have respect for my fellow man, but only when they deserve it. This guy.. I respect his resolve and determination that eventually led to his being accepted into an elite military unit, I respect his physical endurance and strength, and I respect that he put a bullet THROUGH HIS OWN HEAD to impress a girl even though he's been trained very thoroughly on weapons safety.

 

[Dr.Mall Ninja]

Really really sad.. You would think that a SEAL would be trained well enough to never think about putting a gun to his own head.

 

[Ignition Override]

This concerns a different branch of the DOD.

Reportedly some soldiers returned from a range in Germany.

When an enlisted guy asked an officer to clear his Beretta 9mm handgun, the officer did not like the question or insinuation.

The officer aimed the Beretta at the young soldiers' chest and pulled the trigger. The soldier died from the injury.
If this story is not true then please contradict it.

 

[ChileRelleno]

There is usually a chain of mistakes leading up to an accident, each one compounds the likelihood and/or severity of the accident.
Break one link and the chain is usually broken.

1) Inebriation, not necessarily a mistake.

2) Picking up bar tramp, not necessarily a mistake.

3) Showing off firearm to impress bar tramp, definitely a mistake and 1 & 2 just became mistakes.

4) Forgetting Golden Rule #1... Big Freaking Mistake!

The chains that bind us, are usually of our own making.

 

[12gaugeTim]

Yeah, let's throw a party, a SEAL died because he was showing off guns while he was drunk! Best news I've heard in a while! I'm over-freaking-joyed! I hope even more SEALs die today! Woohoo!