An unsafe gun friend

When I was a teen, I had a friend or two over to hunt the farm a few times. I caught one of them keeping his single-barrel cocked because he didn't think he could cock it fast enough to get off a shot if a bird flushed. When I found myself looking down the barrel, I pushed it way and told him to uncock it or we were going home NOW. No more trouble.
He was a city kid and I guess I was unwittingly the only gun teacher he had had.

Bazoo said:

He is the type of friend that has helped me move. He came and mowed my grass when my mom was dying so I didn’t have to. He come and fed my outside dogs and scooped their pen when I was in the hospital. We go to his house for supper occasionally.

Click to expand...

That's very admirable and all, but putting my life or those of my family in danger are non-negotiable.

bannockburn said:

I don't know if he's suffering from ADHD but something going on in his brain is causing a major disconnect when it comes to safe gun handling.

Click to expand...

That has nothing to do with ADHD and everything to do with negligence and carelessness.

Bazoo said:

I’m not looking for support to run him off. I’m looking for ideas to help get him out of his bad habits.

Click to expand...

You're looking for fellow enablers to assist you in your enabling. This guy has amply demonstrated that he will not change.

With "friends" like him, who needs enemies?

entropy said:

Ain't just young guys. We have a league member that reloads his pump immediately after he shoots, then stands like a Southern Sherriff with the butt on his hip with his finger in the trigger guard

Click to expand...

That's more like the mounted chain gang guards. Remember in The Green Mile when they were bringing in the big guy and drove up the road between the road gangs, and there were guards on mules with their shotguns on their hip pointed skyward?

When we turned in our handguns after transporting an inmate, we had to point it into a water trap when we were unloading it. I had to do the same thing on base when I came for duty. You could bring a privately owned firearm on base back then, but could not keep it with you once on base. We had to turn it in at the armory until we left.

Maybe try to steer him into a new hobby with you like fishing or something along those lines and let him hit the range by himself.

My yuppie, cultured, arrogant as all... well, you get the picture... brother-in-law said he wanted to try to go hunting so I took him to train him to shoot.

What happened was, he nearly shot me, twice, with both a .270 and a 12 GA. Both negligent discharges while he was carrying or holding a gun at the BLM land we were at. It didnt seem to phase him much.

So, yep, not again.

I hope that helps, can't hurt.
But I think that by hanging out with That Guy, you are in one of those elective risk activities like skydiving. You might get away with it and you might not, but you are not going to quit.

The Black Prince said:

"I was safe enough in the AF, now all of a sudden I'm not safe" Hey it happens, we aren't always as good as we once were.

Click to expand...

And some of us weren't that good to start with. Being "safe enough in the AF" isn't safe at all if you don't heed the protocol for safety. I was serving as an Air Policeman at the Andersen Air Force base on Guam back in 1962 when I was a witness to a nd committed by a fellow airman at the armory, where we were using a sand-filled bucket to clear our 1911 pistols before surrendering them to the armorer. The regimen was to remove the magazine, point the pistol at the bucket, rack the slide several times, dry-fire it, lock the slide back and hand it over to the armorer with the muzzle pointed toward the sky.

Nothing sounds louder than an unintentional gun shot when you're in close proximity to it. An airman two guys in front of me shot himself in the palm of his hand while "clearing" his weapon. I never learned how it happened exactly but it didn't scare me; I had to defecate anyhow. Being in the military or being a police officer does not automatically confer safe gun-handling habits. Sometimes familiarity really does breed contempt. One must always keep safety foremost in your mind when either you or a companion are handling guns. The op's friend from all accounts seems almost irredeemable. If he hasn't learned by now, especially after having caused more than a couple of nds in the past, it's highly unlikely more lessons will be learned any better than what he was first taught in the Air Force.

Like Mark_Mark suggested, teach him how to net your fish. But stay clear of anything he has that wears hooks.

The 'friend' described by the OP even Shot His Own Car, and had two other NDs.

We know how layers of sheet rock in a house are fairly porous.

Many of us have recently read about apartment neighbors being killed by NDs while cleaning etc, possibly also inside a regular house.
The OP's friend might end up killing a member of his own family.

Has the guy never really thought that Murphy's Law applies , very tragically, even to guns?
In aviation this can apply to an aircraft system failure at the wrong time, loss of ATC radar (or a radio freq.) sudden convective weather (ie near ATL in July)---

---but Murphy isn't normally supposed to be a 'human failure' (?), in addition to those other factors.

"Murphy's Law" does not apply to anyone practicing safe-gun handling. I've heard more than a couple of times that "if you've never caused a negligent discharge (ng) it's only a matter of time before you will"; to which I say Bull Pucky! Don't let self-prophecy become reality. If you always handle firearms safely, you will never cause a ng. But, because I'm also keenly aware that "to err is human" (enter Murphy), I have to add: Always Keep Every Gun Pointed In A Safe Direction At All Times. Murphy casts a long shadow on the careless.

This reminds me of an episode of 'King of the Hill' when Dale Gribble has a negligent discharge at the Arlen Gun Club and then everyone feels sorry for him and tries to help him regain his confidence. Who wants to be Mad Dog? Lol.

There is no way in Hell I would be near this guy with a gun.

Carved into one of my granny's sisters tombstones from 1899 is "KILLED BY ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE OF FIREARM". From the story i was told she was sweeping one morning and the boys had left their rifles leaned in the corner loaded and she knocked one of them over and was shot in the head. Negligent discharges are nothing new.

3 ND is way too many for whatever reason.

Sometimes...
I have a friend - he is a friend and I like him, he likes me - who is a flaming liberal. Other than that, we are friends.
I'm very much a Constitutionalist. I also am conservative financially and politically.
I am also a dedicated (not just Sundays, Easter and Christmas) Christian. He claims to be dismissive of 'all that stuff'.

We just do not discuss certain subjects, or do so briefly and with the knowledge the other isn't going to nod their head silently. Perhaps that might work with the friend in question. I wish you and him every success. And I'll pray for both of you as well.

Bazoo said:

When he shot his car, I was there and it didn’t really unnerve me. This was 5 years ago probably. Or more. It’s always been sorta a joke.

When he had the ND in my house, I didn’t get up and punch him, or yell at him or scold him. I was shocked. I didn’t really know how to react. He left pretty quick. But I started thinking, wow, it isn’t just a little infraction here or there. We started looking at his guns outside after that. And I started distancing myself from shooting with him or having him over. This incident was in a safe direction, through my entertainment center towards a concrete wall.

The ND in his house I think happened right around the same time as the one in my house. I was over there sometime afterwards and seen a patch on the sheet rock. I said. What happened there, your shoot a hole through the wall? And he said yes. Said he was dry firing. It was in a fairly safe direction. To an outside wall towards a hill.

Other than self reflection, it’s not like he’s had a talking to about it. So I’m thinking maybe he isn’t aware of his bad gun handling. Obviously he knows negligent discharges aren’t acceptable. He does have decent finger discipline though.

He has a bad habit of racking the slide on a pistol or bolt on a rifle, but not actually checking to see if it’s loaded, just going through the motions.

I wonder though if any safety improvements will be the same, just going through the motions.

Click to expand...

text him some of these videos! some education is better than nothing. Just say you will do it! We want to hear your doing something man! no more messing around

Been a gun nut for 60 years. One non-intentional discharge in 1968. Put a 22 bullet in the barnyard dirt, no harm done except to my ego. Very educational. (It was the infamous unloaded gun.)

here another one!

Bazoo said:

That’s a good video @Mark_Mark , thanks for sharing. My buddy is not as bad as that, not that blatant. That makes it worse because, only if you're watching do you notice the violations of gun safety.

Click to expand...

make a laugh about it with him! like “Look at these gun idiots” then he can get the idea

here’s a great one about keeping finger off the trigger

here's another one about if they would have just not broken 1 of the 3 rules of gun handling, he would not have shot his friend