Accidental/Negligent Discharge with Smith #4

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CE310QT

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Just had my first ever ND in my life. Been handling guns for 15 years, worked in a gun store for 2 years, carry a firearm for work. Needless to say I am ASHAMED to the nth degree.

Nothing got hurt expect two walls, the ceiling, my pride, and sense of self-respect and confidence.

.32 S&W 4th model top break. The single action trigger has never worked since I bought it and acts like a decocker of sorts in that it lowers the hammer congruent with the speed of returning the trigger home (clearly a major safety issue). I had been fiddling with it before work. Loaded it, but instead of putting it back in the drawer where it belongs I left it on my desk.

Got out of shower, picked it up (riding thumb on hammer, but barely) and said "why won't this damn thing work in SA." I got a boom instead of the series of clicks I was expecting. So there I am standing in a towel, ears ringing, praying it didn't exit the house, thinking to myself "you are really retarded".

That simple. One momentary lapse in diligence and boom I've just had the most embarrassing and dangerous thing that can happen in firearms ownership.

I'm going to stop using this clearly broken gun.

I accept full responsibility for messing around with a loaded firearm. Just figured I'd confess my sin to the body of the church (gun people).
 
Similar thing happened to me once. Momentary lapse in judgment end I put a round through a wall. I still hate myself. But then I did something even dumber. I reported it to the police. I was arrested for recklessly discharging a firearm within city limits.
 
Howdy

I never buy a used firearm without checking to make sure the hammer will hold full cock with some serious forward thumb pressure. If the hammer falls when being pushed forward, I do not buy it.
 
Fortunately I'm quite sure it remained in the house. It traveled through a partition wall, a hallway wall and subsequently into the ceiling at a very shallow angle. Couldn't find slug...but the dowel I used to try stopped after 4 inches or so. Who knew a little .32 s&w could do that!?
 
Mistakes happen. It's part of being human.

What protects us is an interlocking web of good habits that helps to keep the consequences small when they do occur.
 
Only two kinds of gun owners, those who have had an accidental discharge and those who will. At least you followed the most important rule: keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
 
Just curious...what would you have done if two cops had showed up and said someone had heard what seemed to be a gunshot from inside your home? What would you have said? There's something within most of us that makes us want to come clean, but the laws are so draconian these days that one lapse in judgment can take away one's right to own or even use a gun...forever.

Most people have at at least some form of accidental discharges in their lives and most of them they can walk away from intact with only their pride wounded. But if one does it in the wrong place or at the wrong time, one could end up in jail. Things could be worse if you thought you were pointing the gun in a safe direction and instead inadvertently wounded or killed someone in an adjoining room or building.

So far I've taken out a Sony Color Trinitron television set (with a Ruger Security-Six, unloaded, of course), but all I experienced nothing but...well, you know.
 
Luckily I have never had a ND but I have had sever close calls. If course it was when not paying full attention to what was doing but luckily that little voice in my head said, "Stop" and I listened. Lessons learned without the boom are better than with.

I'm glad no one was hurt or worse.
 
We have all had these accidents one way or another. It seems the "Gun Gods", send us a reminder of our responsibilities once in awhile. :)
 
The beautiful irony is the day before my brother and I were mercilessly ridiculing our LEO friend who had the classic Glock field strip boom while tripping the trigger a couple weeks ago.

If two cops had shown up, what would I do? Well, where I live there are no negligent discharge laws, only a law prohibiting the "wanton or intentional discharge" within populated areas.

Sensitive subject in my neighborhood...my neighbor was shot in the head right in front of my house a month ago, I was one of two eyewitnesses. I'd probably tell them I had a mechanical malfunction in a late 1800s revolver and hope they didn't take it further.
 
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It's a good lesson for developing the habit of never taking any gun for granted. You've "exposed yourself" :D here on the web with this story. And that takes a lot of courage. But if it serves as a lesson to anyone out there to learn better habits or to solidify good habits that are being formed then a little interwebz embarrassment isn't a bad thing.

A long time shooting buddy I know has an interesting habit of never picking up a gun which has been out of his control and sight without breaking it open and checking the status. I've seen him do this on many occasions. It's an ingrained habit. Even if he just turns to talk to someone and sets his gun down he will check the gun for clear or not when he turns back to it.

The distraction might come from folks chatting to us. Or it may come from wondering why the trigger doesn't work correctly. Or it may be some other thing. But the key is that a good well ingrained habit for checking for loaded or clear can be a good thing. It would have saved needless wall repairs in this case. In another for those of you in the US it could avoid leaving home with an empty carry piece.
 
BCRider said:
It's a good lesson for developing the habit of never taking any gun for granted. You've "exposed yourself" :D here on the web with this story. And that takes a lot of courage. But if it serves as a lesson to anyone out there to learn better habits or to solidify good habits that are being formed then a little interwebz embarrassment isn't a bad thing.

A long time shooting buddy I know has an interesting habit of never picking up a gun which has been out of his control and sight without breaking it open and checking the status. I've seen him do this on many occasions. It's an ingrained habit. Even if he just turns to talk to someone and sets his gun down he will check the gun for clear or not when he turns back to it.

The distraction might come from folks chatting to us. Or it may come from wondering why the trigger doesn't work correctly. Or it may be some other thing. But the key is that a good well ingrained habit for checking for loaded or clear can be a good thing. It would have saved needless wall repairs in this case. In another for those of you in the US it could avoid leaving home with an empty carry piece.
Click to expand...
 
I developed this habit over sixty years ago, has alway stood me in good stead:

A long time shooting buddy I know has an interesting habit of never picking up a gun which has been out of his control and sight without breaking it open and checking the status. I've seen him do this on many occasions. It's an ingrained habit. Even if he just turns to talk to someone and sets his gun down he will check the gun for clear or not when he turns back to it.


On three occasions it has saved me from likely grief, when I was handed a gun though to be empty, but was not.


Bob Wright
 
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In 60+ years I have not had ND but wife has so as a family we have had one. We all think it will never happen to me but it does. My ex Marine buddy who was also a firearms instructor had one last year in his bedroom and fortunately the only bad outcome was embarrassment and a ticked off wife.
 
I put a hole in my wall with a Glock 26 a few years ago. I had the habit of storing my non-carry/non-HD guns with empty magazines inserted (so I wouldn't lose them:rolleyes:). Got home from the range and wiped down the 26 (not field strip, just to wipe off the soot) and did a couple of function checks to make sure everything sounded and felt OK. Slide locked back, grabbed a partial magazine out of my bag without looking (the other two were empty. There were just a few extra rounds in this mag that I planned on finishing up at the range that day but forgot to shoot before I left, if i remember correctly), dropped the slide and pulled the trigger to clear it..."BOOM" hole in the wall, but it was at an angle didnt seem to exit anywhere. My thought process was pretty much exactly yours.

Scared the hell out of me. Put me off Glocks for a good while even though it wasn't the gun's fault. I pulled the trigger, Glocks go off when you do that.
Now I am anal about every gun I pick up. Wheel guns get triple checked to make sure a sneaky round didn't get stuck in the chamber. All guns coming out of storage are cleared several times. All of my guns that aren't in my bed-side HD/carry safe are stored without there magazines to make it even easier to tell if the gun is loaded. i won't need them in a hurry, so its just one more level of safety.

I even store my bedside safe guns in slip holsters that I made that cover the triggers and have "WARNING: LIVE FIRE HOLSTER. GUN WILL FIRE" written on them in silver sharpie. I figure that there may come a time when someone needs to get into the safe when it isn't life or death (maybe I'm hurt or in the hospital or even dead), be it my wife or daughter, and having a visual warning to make sure they are careful with the gun isn't a bad thing. I like having the guns triggers covered so that when i draw them out, there isn't a chance of getting my finger caught in the trigger guard.

ND are scary. They show us just why the 4 rules are gospel.
 
Curator said:
Only two kinds of gun owners, those who have had an accidental discharge and those who will.
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o_O That is about as true as the Silly saying, "There is no such thing as a stupid question" since stupid questions abound.

I think that it is outstanding when folks who have experienced ADs or NDs tell us about it because it keeps the subject (and the There But For The Grace Of God aspect for all of us) fresh in all of our minds.

I am happy to hear that no one was hurt, CE310QT, and thank you very much for sharing that episode with us!

{EDIT: Changed descriptor to "Silly"}
 
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Shaq said:
Sorry, don't agree.
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You have no control over it sometimes. An SKS fired when I was chambering the first round due to old cosmoline in the bolt. My Remington 700 fired when I released the safety. I forgot my old six shooter had a hair trigger and went off pretty much when I touched the trigger. Another shooter at the range had a Colt AR go full-auto and dump most of the mag.

All are accidental discharges. All my rifle rounds both went downrange safely. The pistol round hit the 6 ring, messing up what turned out to be a good group. You can do everything right, and things can still go wrong. Follow the rules, and nobody should get hurt.
 
maxxhavoc said:
You have no control over it sometimes. An SKS fired when I was chambering the first round due to old cosmoline in the bolt. My Remington 700 fired when I released the safety. I forgot my old six shooter had a hair trigger and went off pretty much when I touched the trigger. Another shooter at the range had a Colt AR go full-auto and dump most of the mag.

All are accidental discharges. All my rifle rounds both went downrange safely. The pistol round hit the 6 ring, messing up what turned out to be a good group. You can do everything right, and things can still go wrong. Follow the rules, and nobody should get hurt.
Click to expand...

This neatly raises the difference between an ACCIDENTAL discharge and a NEGLIGENT discharge. A round going off due to some unknown and unexpected mechanical failure or mechanical condition of a gun certainly qualifies as an accidental discharge. That SKS and Remington being such cases. The old 6 shooter with the hair trigger could be a case of a combination. Sure the AD part was due to the hair trigger. But a share of ND has to be included for it being a known but then forgotten without dealing with it.

That AR going full auto sounds like another issue of some failure that was not expected. So again it would be an AD.

But most times it's the nut attached to the trigger ( taken from the old joke " the most dangerous nut in a car is the one behind the wheel") that is the problem. And in such cases there is no such thing as an AD. All such are ND's and are avoidable. But we are all human and such things can plague us. Thus the need to practice all the safety rules about pointing and handling so that if things do go south that breaking only one rule and having an ND as a result is just embarrassing and not harmful... other than to the drywall......

Also I fully agree that threads such as this are valuable as it makes us think. And we can never be safe enough.
 
i had a n.d. about 23 years ago, it was with a muzzle loader. it was my first smoke pole, it snapped the cap but the powder didn't ignite. i stupidly looked down the barrel, i then leaned it up against my truck bed and went and started looking for the bullet puller, about 1 minute later the gun went off. that taught me a lesson i have never forgot.
 
maxxhavoc said:
You have no control over it sometimes. An SKS fired when I was chambering the first round due to old cosmoline in the bolt. My Remington 700 fired when I released the safety. I forgot my old six shooter had a hair trigger and went off pretty much when I touched the trigger. Another shooter at the range had a Colt AR go full-auto and dump most of the mag.

All are accidental discharges. All my rifle rounds both went downrange safely. The pistol round hit the 6 ring, messing up what turned out to be a good group. You can do everything right, and things can still go wrong. Follow the rules, and nobody should get hurt.
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With the exception of the (possibly) defective Remington 700, your examples of AD's are due to negligence. Before loading a greasy rifle like a surplus SKS, the cosmoline should have been removed - especially in the firing pin channel where it is known to cause a slam fire.
Your "Old six shooter with the hair trigger" fired when you touched the trigger is absolute silliness...what do you expect a gun to do when you touch the trigger??
 
Shaq said:
With the exception of the (possibly) defective Remington 700
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Are you saying that they (possibly) meant that as a "feature"?

Shaq said:
Before loading a greasy rifle like a surplus SKS, the cosmoline should have been removed - especially in the firing pin channel where it is known to cause a slam fire.
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It wasn't "known" in 1993. None of the Internet forums were discussing it. Or existed. It was professionally cleaned. Not well enough, and this was before the news picked up the story of the "full auto chinese SKS" rifles. SGN didn't even know about it yet.

Shaq said:
Your "Old six shooter with the hair trigger" fired when you touched the trigger is absolute silliness...what do you expect a gun to do when you touch the trigger??
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I don't expect a touch to set off any firearm that is not a rifle setup for benchrest. I still take responsibility for this, although I was on target before I cocked or my finger went in the trigger guard. I'll call that a ND

I'n not trying to pick a fight here. The truth is, if you shoot enough you will almost certainly have an AD. AR's double, slamfires happen, primers pop and get stuck in inconvenient places in the action. You can't control Murphy, you can only be vigilant and make sure you handle your firearms safely and keep them pointed away from things you don't want destroyed.
 
Credit to the original poster for speaking up.

Every time i read one of these I put myself in the story and I get chills.

It's a good reminder.
 
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