ND vs AD

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chevyman097

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Ok I've held off for years even trying to discuss this on the internet because I observe so many discussion that ADs(accidental discharges) dont exist only NDs(negligent discharges).

I beg to differ. Hear me out.

To me a negligent discharge is some how the fault of the shooter. An accidental discharge( to me)is the firearm malfunctioning. Why would a faulty firearm discharging(the firearm discharging without the shooter engaging the trigger. It happens and ill explain) when the shooter has no control over it be the shooters fault?(negligent)

And my point, I have experienced an ACCIDENTAL discharge. This is the story.

I was out shooting my two mosin nagants with a buddy. We are having a good ol time and i have 5 rounds in the chamber. It is my turn shooting and my shooting buddy is standing to the right of me slighting back from me.( as always to be safe)

I shoot once, he is spotting and tells me hit or miss, I shoot twice, he is spotting telling me hit or miss, i rack the bol.....BAM! my finger IS NOT on the trigger at all. The gun goes off. Everyone is safe, we were practicing the usual gun safety and due to that no one was hurt. The gun of course was pointed down range at all times while loaded.

So i empty the gun immediately after we know everyone is ok. I begin to inspect it to find out what happened. I discover that there is a malfunction with my mosin. When racking a new round into the chamber the firing pin is not locking back but falling upon closing the bolt causing it to hit the primer. So obviously one went off, eventually.

Sorry for the rambling...lol

I come to my point. To me that is "accidental" Not "negligent" everyone was being responsible and no one was hurt. The firearm malfunctioned and it was not at the hands of a "negligent" handler.


So I gotta hear it.....let me have it.
 
Just a friendly heads-up. There's a current similar thread... not comparing ND w/ AD but those comparisons seem to always arise anyway. There was also another similar thread not long ago.
 
I think your description is fairly correct, but then there are some problem areas. Whether or not somebody gets hurt has nothing to do with whether it was accidental or negligental, for example.

If you drop a gun and it discharges, is that an accidental discharge? The drop is likely caused by some form of negligent handling that resulted in the gun discharging despite the gun not being touched by a human at the time of the discharge. That means that there is no "shooter" per se. So you have an accidental discharge that occurred as a result of negligent handling. How do you classify it?

While doing draw and fire drills, you re-insert your Glock into your holster and the gun discharges. Your finger is not on the trigger. The gun has not malfunctioned in any manner as it has functioned 100% as designed. Turns out, your shirt has become untucked in the back and your motion as resulted in your shirt getting holstered with your pistol, fouling the trigger which became pulled and hence the gun discharged. Accidental discharge or Negligental discharge?

You are responsible for the maintenance and care of your gun. A part has become worn out, but you have not checked to be sure that your gun's parts are still in spec. The worn part results in the gun firing unexpectantly without you touching the trigger. The discharge is accidental (due to a malfunction of the gun due to a bad part) but the discharge actually happened as a result of negligent maintenance. So is it an Accidental discharge or Negligental discharge? (this one pertains to your example)

Most of the differences in AD and ND come down to issues of the actual shooter. Was his/her finger on the trigger or not, but there are some great area concerns that come into play.

What I am really suggesting here is that there are some unique areas for consideration that are generally rare, but sort of muddy the waters on what some folks consider to be clearly defined categories.
 
Be carefull with used guns! A friend shot a hole in one of the pontoons on his boat using a decocker safety in front of a several witnesses who all say his trigger finger was straight and not inside the trigger guard. These sort of things usually happen when some fudd attempts a home trigger job but adhearance to the 4 basic safety rules minimize the danger. I have also been shown an old retired Ithica shotgun that was known to sometime fire when pumped. Something was simply worn out. probably the sear.
 
More on the Ithica (sorry, the wife distracted me) I was shown this old worn Model 37 Featherweight and the owner explained that it had belonged to his long deceased grandfather who bought it as a young man. We took it out back and carefully dry fired it a few times and yes, if pumped vigerously sometimes the hammer would follow the bolt home. Being that it was an family heirloom the owner did not want to get rid of it. I told him that it was an accident waiting to happen and strongly suggested that he either get it fixed or remove the firing pin so that it was deactivated. Someone could inherit this thing or buy it at an estate sale and have a serious AD.
 
Doube naught

You are responsible for the maintenance and care of your gun. A part has become worn out, but you have not checked to be sure that your gun's parts are still in spec. The worn part results in the gun firing expectantly without you touching the trigger. The discharge is accidental (due to a malfunction of the gun due to a bad part) but the discharge actually happened as a result of negligent maintenance. So is it an Accidental discharge or Negligent discharge? (this one pertains to your example)
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First of id like to say thank you for responding in a respectful manner and giving examples. I did expect this to be one of the first examples given.

Both mosins where new buys. I did inspect them, clean them, and check function before shooting. Nothing seemed to be a muck. The second mosin also had a problem. Upon firing the 4th round on every rotation the magazine would pop open and drop the 5th round out. The first one did not drop the firing pin when cold, I tested and tested it again. It would only start malfunctioning when the firearm was warm. I did eventually fix the problem by replacement of a part just fyi.

To add, both mosins were purchased from a well known reputable online vendor. I am happy with the purchase and hold nothing against them. Just so no one thinks they were a second hand gun show buy or what not.

My point is firearms can malfunction and it is not always the shooters fault, safety wins. Saying all unintended discharges are "negligent" assumes it is always the operators fault.
 
303tom.

That is my point exactly. So many say there is no difference, when there actually is a VERY distinct difference. Look up the definition of Negligent and accidental.

You will find the power of google directs you to very easily found online sources for dictionaries.
 
I laughed when I saw the title of this thread, as I thought to myself 'ahh, this debate again'.

Honestly, it is an issue of semantics. A negligent discharge often occurs accidentally, and an accidental discharge is often negligent in nature. Neither term is mutually exclusive of the other.

Some would apply a difference to the terms based on the consequences of the action. In other words, the term "accidental" might be applied to an errant shot sent downrange on a hot range, in a safe direction, whereas the term "negligent" might be used to describe a shot that could have potentially impacted the safety of others.

But, the terms are largely interchangeable, unless you're just looking for an argument. Whether someone says that they had an AD or an ND, we all pretty much get the idea.

At least that's my $0.02


Or, maybe it goes one step further: It is an accident when it happens to YOU, and a pure and unquestionable case of negligence when it happens to someone else! ;)
 
You bought a used gun and didn't properly safety test it before shooting it.

That's arguably negligent.
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If you will read all of the posts you will find I did state I tested the firearms before shooting(as i do all my firearms). If you have any more suggestions i am definitely open to them.
 
Honestly, it is an issue of semantics
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Yep, that's what what does it mean means.

FWIW, I classify an AD as a mechanical failure that causes the discharge, and an ND when it's the person's fault. Note that some mechanical failures are caused by people messing with stuff.
 
I have an HK USP 40 with a manual decock. I know if used it will function correctly and have never had a problem with it. But I will still only use it after I am done shooting at the range and all bullets have exitted safely. Then I will point it down range and use it. To me, if I use it otherwise, and it fails mechanically, that is a negligent discharge, because I know that mechanical things can fail. In the military and my law enforcement experience, everything was a ND. Unless the investigation can prove conclusively that the weapon functioned in a way contrary to it's design and the officer/serviceman was not mishandling the weapon. Then it gets swept under the rug. ;)
 
ad...nd.....
To me what this boils down to is far larger. When WE as the 2A FRIENDLY crowd use words like Negligence to describe an action of one of our own WE make it easier for the ANTI 2A crowd to pick us apart.
In that same line if it was just gross actions like waving a gun around and it went off then fine thats negligence to the highest degree and said person can not be defended.
If some one does a home trigger job in his basement and after safety checks work out takes said gun to the range to test fire, loads gun and it discharges its not negligence its checking for a problem with the gun in this case they found a problem. In this case its and Accident.
What I mean to say is this, we need to look out for ourselves and each other for the greater good of gun ownership. Since so many have already ventured down the slipery slope of ND verbage, well its hard to get that horse back in the barn now.
All this ND stuff seems like a de-sensitising of ourselves to push blame on a gun user its a poor habit and makes us a target to those who will take away our rights while we suport them doing it with words like Negligent Discharge.
Afterall if he was slopy with a gun what stops you or I from doing the same thing? This is the Anti crowds arguement. Its bad enough that bad things happen then words like negligence make bad into ugly and way more noticible. A word like Accident makes things sound bad but repairable. A word like Negligence brings on images of lawyers and never ending media coverage. Accidents go away and get forgoten, Negligence gets recorded in books for refrences at Supreem Courts.
Thank you for reading this *steps off the soap box and walks away*
 
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Eric F said:
... When WE as the 2A FRIENDLY crowd use words like Negligence to describe an action of one of our own WE make it easier for the ANTI 2A crowd to pick us apart. ...
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I have to respectfully disagree. Negligent discharges do happen. Redefining terms to the advantage of of your own political agenda is dishonest. Why not take the high road and just be open and honest? Each side to the issue has pluses and minuses. If they didn't, why would there be two sides? If your viewpoint has merit there should be no need to sweep the negatives under the rug. This is precisely why I hate "politically correct" terms.
 
Accidental and negligent are overlapping terms (well, anywhere except gun forums). We speak quite comfortably of "car accidents," yet just about every one of them has to do with some form of negligence on the part of the driver (or one of the drivers): inattention, driving too fast for road conditions, failure to properly maintain the car, etc.

Most people here use the term ND for anytime when your finger contacts the trigger, but you did not intend to fire.

I read a story about how one shooting competitor was settling in behind his rifle when his finger inadvertently brushed his competition (extremely light) trigger. Bang, he looked at his spotting scope, hoping for a clean miss--and found a hole in the x-ring.

So, an unintentional discharge (a few seconds early) that went right where he would have wanted it to go. Negligent discharge!

Personally, I think that accidental discharges happen over a continuum. An ND into a planned, purpose-built safe backstop and/or downrange to land almost where intended is one thing; an ND that destroys property, injures someone or comes close to doing either is a different animal, IMHO.

NDs (of the above definition) are always the shooter's fault, so, just like car accidents, there is negligence involved. But the degree of that negligence varies, and I think we do well to recognize that.

And we do even better to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward NDs: each of us, personally...fiercely.
 
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ok folks, this is pretty simple......

ac·ci·dent Noun/ˈaksidənt/
1. An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
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pretty much, ANY time a gun fires when it isnt supposed to......its an AD.....

whether or not that AD is caused by negligence is a different matter.

its just the same as a car crash........to date, i have never heard anyone ever say "i was in a negligent traffic collision"

everyone says "i was in a car accident"......because, it was an accident(ususally)........

but we all know, car crashes are usually caused when someone wasnt paying attention....or, being negligent.


so ND or AD.......it really doesnt make any difference.
 
Regardless what anyone calls it... you were acting responsibly and adhering to the four rules and no one was hurt. You were having fun, but you weren't fooling around. Rather, you demonstrated the proper respect and care which I feel are necessary prerequisites for gun handling of any type.

I'm no Mosin expert, but I believe what you experienced would be properly termed a slam fire and if I understand correctly, it's not uncommon with Mosins, or any other design with a free floating firing pin.

A good way to check for this is to chamber a round and then eject it without firing and inspect the primer. If you see a substantial dimple. You probably want to do some homework and check it out. Or take it to someone you deem to be competent to do so. I believe some of these designs can be retrofit with a firing pin spring.

Another point to consider is ammo selection, as military ammo. specifications usually require harder primers, specifically to prevent slam fires. I'm not sure if Winchester or Federal use hard primers in their factory 7.62x39 ammo. I'm pretty sure all the mil. surp. ammo. does. Not sure about the Russian import ammo. manufactured for the civilian market in the US.
 
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If it does not happen on purpose it is an accident. It can be caused by negligence but it still was not intentional and therefore an accident. The whole thing is a stupid argument of semantics.
 
Someone said:

You bought a used gun and didn't properly safety test it before shooting it.
That's arguably negligent.
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Could be but then there is a first time for everything.
Take the story about the old Ithaca shotgun that would sometimes fire when pumped as an example. It took me several tries before I could get it to malfunction. Anyone could have conceivably fired it a few times and concluded that it worked fine. Then taken it in the house and the next time they loaded it and chambered a shell and BOOM, hole in the wall.

The key is to pay attention to all 4 basic safety rules and keep the barrel pointed in a safe direction at all times. My friend who had a mechanical malfunction and sgot a hole in his pontoon did so because he was pointing the pistol "in a safe direction" away from his buddies.
 
If you use the actual definitions of the words and not what "we" wish they meant for purposes of this discussion, you will find that one is a subset of the other, and they are not mutually exclusive.
 
Mechanical malfunctions DO HAPPEN but are probably the rarest sort of gun accident. Modern gun manufacturers go to great lengths to design redundancy into the safety systems to avoid lawsuits. The 4 basic safety rules also have overlapping redundancy for the same reason. As long as you keep the barrel pointed in a safe direction at all times damage can be kept to a minimum. Even if your gun somehow "goes off" while in your hand it is still your fault if it hits a person because you were practicing unsafe gun handling by not minding the muzzel. The OP is a good example of how safe gun handling can cover for any mechanical failure.
 
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