Gun shop and range idiocy

Let me have 'em folks, stories of the dumbest individuals you have ever seen at a range or gun shop.

My examples include out of state individuals going shooting with relatives. 40 YO woman has a Heritage Arms .22 SA and empties the cylinder into a paper target. After emptying the gun and losing count of rounds shot, she pulls the hammer back and fires only to hear a click. The woman re-cocks the gun, turns the barrel directly at her face, and proceeds to look down the chambers of a still "loaded" and cocked pistol. Same day a different woman from the group takes her purse gun, a Kel-Tec .380 or 9MM from the look of it, and fires the mag down range without the slide locking on empty. She then proceeds to wave the pistol about flagging every Individual on the range behind her.
Finally, there was the person who brought an antique Parker Bros Shotgun which he claimed was made in 1903 and had about 60% bluing left on the Vulcan Steel Barrels. The thing held up great to a couple rounds of modern target load birdshot. The man loads and closes the gun, sets it on the staging table and then proceeds to walk down range with the barrels pointing similarly. I turn my back to start putting away my gear and I hear the gun go off. My guess is that something in the gun finally failed after a century and it just so happened to be on that unlucky day. I turn around and there the man is shaking like a chihuahua on espresso all but having pissed himself on the spot. Man was damn lucky not to visit the hospital with a chest loaded full of birdshot. He walks back full of shame and empties the Parker, packs his stuff, and drives away. Haven't seen the man at the range since but I run into him around town as we are a very rural small town.

Additionally: a few hours after creating this post I remembered another 2 incidents.
1. My dad and I decided to go shooting after I bought a Yugo m24/47. My father short strokes the bolt after his first round and fails to pick up and chamber the next round. Pulls the trigger and click, nothing. What does he do? Immediately goes to open the bolt and look in the chamber without waiting for a hang fire. The man who taught me to shoot had his first brainfart on the range.
2. Same day, a couple of the usual at the club come over and one wants to shoot the same Mauser. He hands me 10 bucks, loads up 5 rounds, and instead of parking himself at the 150 or 300 meter range he goes to the pistol target and unloads point blank onto an AR-500 steel target that was luckily tilted back on the top of the dirt berm. After that, I had enough and packed up for the day. Every shot he made you could hear the high pitched scream as the round ricocheted off the steel off into god knows where.

.455_Hunter said:

I had been assigned to my unit for a couple months as an O1 when a slot for the next M9 range opened up and I wanted to go. Turns out it was a "Field Grade" range, almost all O4 and above. No problem- I had not shot a Beretta 92 before, but knew my way around a handgun just fine. I was standing with the other shooters when the Finance Battalion XO, an O4, went to the first station. She chambered a round, attempted to fire, but nothing happened. Frustrated, she fiddled with the pistol for a second, and then did a 180 deg rotation- POINTING IT RIGHT AT THE GROUP!

I never saw an O6 with a perfect field uniform hit the ground so fast! The verbal backlash was impressive. She was sent to the back and sulked for the rest of the morning. Some people should just have a rubber duck.

The good thing was that I did qualify expert on my first outing!

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Was a PFC at Campbell when something similar happenned. Was with 3-187 on the range and our unit still had full auto capability on our M4's. Course, being my luck I was the squad 240B assignee so I was just at practice and qualification on ammo detail. I'm sitting there goofing around on my phone on a 10 minute smoke break towards the end of the day when the bad shots are trying their damndest to boost their qualification score. I hear the dread sound noone wants to hear at quals. Some goofy new private fresh out of training accidentally slipped his rifle from semi to automatic and let a burst rip. Never have I seen a group of NCO's and officers more pissed.

Another time we had a fresh face in our own company on Hamburger Hill day in charge of weapon guard detail. Dude, not even kidding, gets up and asks my NCO if he can take his lunch break. Not his NCO, not his squad leader, just some random NCO. He then takes off without relief on the weapons detail or letting anyone know where he was going. Too new for anyone to know his phone #, his NCO comes up to me in the middle of lunch and asks if I've seen him. Told him what I said above. He gets back 2 hours later from registering his car at the DMV and having a long lunch, all the while I'm stuck at ease watching a table full of firearms. Soon as he walked up, this NCO and my current good friend, goes cherry tomato red in the face and disappeared with the private and a 240B. Comes back an hour later with the new private thoughroughly smoked and pouring sweat.

Final update for today. I realised my first post was without an actual shop story so here is one I just remembered. My local GS is usually pretty good and knowledgeable about his wares. Unfortunately, I am that insufferable jackass that spends all his free time reading about guns or really any weaponry. One day, the dude gets a funky looking (sporterized and extremely dirty) Carcano in. The thing, if memory serves, was priced at $150. I asked him why it was so low and he said the ammo cost was too high. Ok, fair enough, a few prior he had a sporterized Arisaka in for $100 for the same reason. I ask him "does it come with any clips?"
Without a hint of irony he proceeds to say "it's a fixed magazine." I then have to proceed with telling him the rifle design required clips like a Garand. He gets this look of realization on his face and goes red in the face. "I thought they were stripper clips, the dude who sold it said it came with 30 slips and I threw them away."

Steve S. said:

You are surrounded, drowning in stupid people everyday - this planet reeks of stupid people. How can one be surprised at irresponsible firearms handling by people. It amazes me that people are amazed.

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It's not so much I'm Amazed at this. I am surrounded by politics state and local every day due to my job. Being involved and fighting in politics every day is to stare into a dark hole with little relief. so I created this post as an escape and way to laugh at something everyone in the gun community shares, seeing stupidity or failures revolving around one of our favorite hobbies.