Who's had a 'negligent discharge'??

I've sorta had one. I was black powder hunting a few years ago, we got to the property & put a percussion cap on my rifle. I usually shoot a couple caps thru it just to clear it out. This time I got a surprise, cocked it & pointed it downrange & pulled the trigger. After it went boom and surprised the heck out of me, I remembered I had loaded it with powder & maxi ball a few months earlier. Something happened & we went home early & I forgot about it until the day I went back up. Was really glad it was pointed in a safe direction.

One. I have discussed it many times on here. Absolutely my fault, but in no way shape or form helped out by product design, and when I point that out I typically get flogged.

Henry lever carbine 22. Squirrel was doing the normal squirrel thing where every time I would be almost ready for a shot he would run around the tree. No decocker or safety on the lever Henry’s so each time I had to thumb the hammer down. One of the times my thumb slipped and the result was a bullet that managed to go between my toes without much more than a serious scare, but the point learned was very well ingrained that day... always have a simple and quick way to make a hot gun safe safely. A simple cross bolt or something similar would have kept me from having the ND, as better control of the gun would have, so I take responsibility, but there is zero reason for a firearm to be sold today without some form of safety. I no longer own any Henry products, and will not own a firearm without a safety. Too many things can happen in an instant whether it be the squirrel going around a tree, or another hunter popping up opposite a deer your aiming at, there should be a corresponding “off button”. I am less at odds with handguns because you can easily aim at the ground and make safe, but that’s not easy to do with rifles or shotguns, especially the more powerful varieties.

A good friend of mine works as a crop consultant and essentially tells farmers what fertilizers or sprays to use to maximize crop yield. Several of his contracts have leased land on military base where he cannot carry, but he does carry most places due to dogs and snakes. He has to unholster and secure his pistol before entering military property, and his routine used to be that he would go and cable-lock his pistol to a tree on adjacent property before going onto base... and then one day... his carry gun was a striker fired polymer pistol, I think an XD40 compact, but it could have been a Glock 26 or 27. The tag end of his belt got Loose and found it’s way into the back side of the trigger guard as he reholstered and as he gently pushed the pistol down into the holster it fired. A hydrashok went through his right butt cheek, through his wallet, exiting his inner right thigh, hitting left calf in the rear and exiting near his left ankle, and it never expanded. Everybody who weighed in on that has simply assumed that bits of drivers license and credit card clogged up the tip and prevented expansion. He no longer wears a traditional belt, and whether it has it when he buys it or not, he has a small Velcro loop on the top of his belts that secure the loose end to the main body of the belt.

Former coworker, S&W model 10 snub. Unholstered at home one night and dropped the gun. It went off firing up into his chest hitting his breastplate.

Former roommate, had a very realistic nightmare that someone was breaking in and fired a round in his bedroom at what appeared to be a burglar, turned out to be a shadow moving on the wall as it was windy and the tree outside blocking part of the moonlight was moving around.

I know a cop personally who did the Glock-leg thing. His pistol was holstered at the time but he kinda plopped down in his cruiser on the gun so really no telling what may have set it off. The holster was trashed too so there’s a question of if the holster broke immediately before or after the shot too.

*** no significant injuries in any of these***. Coworkers breast plate stopped the 38 slug, buddies legs were poked but they just put 2 stitches at each hole and gave him antibiotics, and the cops leg was a superficial wound that required surgery to remove the bullet but again, stitches and antibiotics.

One, years ago. I was in my bedroom getting ready for a range trip with some friends. Removed my carry gun, a S&W 3913, and dropped the magazine. Got interrupted by a phone call. Hung up a few minutes later, unloaded the mag, stuck it back in the gun, pointed it at my waterbed--the only safe direction in the room--and pulled the trigger. That's when I realized I had never cleared the chamber. Had to get a new mattress. I still have that bullet somewhere.

I had what I will describe as a Major Brain Fart.

I was new to guns and had recently bought my first gun, a S&W Model 15 in .38Spl. I kept it loaded, but in a holster and in a soft case. I brought it out to dry fire at the heads on TV. I unloaded it. Checked it. And dry fired for a while. Then I reloaded it. Checked it. Put it in the holster. Put the holstered gun in the soft case. And started taking it back to my bedroom.

But on the way back, I saw a margarita mixer bottle belonging to a roommate, that was sitting on a table across the room. 'One more quick dry fire', I thought to myself. Pulled out the loaded gun from the soft case, from the holster, and put a Remington hollow point through the bright green cap of the bottle, through the dry wall, and into the garage.

Oops.

FFGColorado said:

Not trying to put anybody on report here but who has had one? What were the circumstances?..Seems a good discussion point, considering some of the other threads...

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2 in over 40 years of CCWing legally

Both hit nothing that could not be fixed or patched.

Lessons learned BIGTIME.

One was a 1911 I was trying to lower hammer as back then I carried in condition 2 [ that was then ] ,the other was a Charter arms .44 bulldog [ I was testing to see if it would index all rounds as they were reloads ]

Mid'70s I worked graveyard shift in a new beach resort hotel. At one point I was carrying a .45acp Colt Combat Commander (C&L) under my jacket in a leather pancake holster. After the morning crew arrived and got settled, I would secure the pistol one of my desk drawers prior to going to the head. Once I returned in time to see that my buddy had retrieved the pistol from the drawer and, while saying something about how it reminded him of the Colt that he had carried in Vietnam, using a thumb to somewhat slow the motion, dropped the hammer. CLICK!

And yes, he was well aware that there was a cartridge in the chamber.

My heart was in my throat! I grabbed the gun from him, dropped the mag and racked the slide (all in one motion, it seems). The primer on the chambered round was dented!

He confessed that he had one time made his granddad's 1911 fire by doing that. He thought it was a slick-looking way of dropping the hammer "safely".

A year or so later, while sitting in his living room cleaning a Walther PP that he insisted that I sell him, he did the same thing and put a bullet thru the window and into the neighbor's roof.

I think that with THAT one, he finally learned the lesson.

The only unintentional discharges I've ever had was with a salvaged Norinco 213 that I pulled out of the Black Warrior River near the University of Alabama.
I'd already called it in to the local police, with no wants, so I was cleaning it up.
It was loaded, of course.
I pulled the mag and the live round on site.
Once I got home I cleaned the mag and pistol in my room, which was a sort of half-basement with thick, low-grade concrete walls. I reloaded the mag, pulled back the slide, pointed the pistol at the head of my bed and hit the slide release.
B-bang!
A double malfunction with no contact with the trigger.

30 years ago I tried to lower the hammer on a chambered 1911. This was at my favorite shooting spot in the woods. The slide bloodied up my thumb pretty well... the muzzle was in a safe direction pointed towards the ground... as always. I have never tried that again!!!!!

I had a friend send one through his roof and another friend send one through his wall. I never considered either friend particularly careless. The friend that sent one through his roof admitted to being stupid at the time though.

I had a boss that tells the story of sending 7 rounds of .45 down range with a single trigger pull of his father in laws military 1911. Not really negligent and no one got hurt or was in danger. He never shot that 1911 or ANY 1911 ever again... at least since I last talked to him.

I was at a Gun Show in Portland OR years ago when a customer sent a .308 through the ceiling at a Class 3 vendors table. The vendor was asked to leave and never come back. DAMM was the whole exhibition hall quiet when that round went off!!! I don't recall seeing a single gun drawn, just everyone staring in shock... but I wasn't really looking because I was in shock too!

I am sure my first girlfriend has many more accidental discharge stories... but I won't get into those!

I did, took the magazine out of my first handgun, thought I had racked the slide to remove chambered round; proceeded to point it into the ground in a safe manner and pulled the trigger. Only the dirt and my pride were hurt. Overlap of gun safety rules overlap for a reason.

Legionnaire said:

One, years ago. I was in my bedroom getting ready for a range trip with some friends. Removed my carry gun, a S&W 3913, and dropped the magazine. Got interrupted by a phone call. Hung up a few minutes later, unloaded the mag, stuck it back in the gun, pointed it at my waterbed--the only safe direction in the room--and pulled the trigger. That's when I realized I had never cleared the chamber. Had to get a new mattress. I still have that bullet somewhere.

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Was the puddle under the water bed bigger than the puddle between your legs?

Thunderchicken said:

I was around 19 or 20 years old—more than forty years ago. I was in the habit of practicing my draw—without any training, of course—in the mirror in my bedroom. Got up one day and decided to do that ... while I was still sleepy ... without checking to see the revolver was unloaded (remember the “no training” part), drew and fired a round right through myself in the mirror. I still remember the ringing silence and my surprise, shock, and feeling of ... well, “dodging a bullet” actually fits for once. To this day I have no memory of pulling the trigger, but I fired double-action so I surely did.

Since then I have learned and internalized the four rules and think of myself as a pretty safety-minded shooter, to the point where I probably annoy people sometimes. That’s okay by me, I never want to hurt someone—even myself—with another brain fade incident. Legally it might not have been negligent, but I’ve always thought of it that way.

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Reminds me of a buddy who was not watching his trigger finger while attempting to unload his SKS. 7.62mm bullet hole in his bedroom wall. Luckily that bedroom was a later addition to the house and 3 of the 4 walls faced outside. It was about a year before his wife would let him keep a loaded gun in the house again. And then he was only allowed one.

theotherwaldo said:

double malfunction with no contact with the trigger

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Good reason for it to end up in the river...
Thankfully, I've never had an AD/ND. Closest was on a cold and rainy day at the end of muzzleloader season, using and old Traditions...had a shot at a doe. Pulled the trigger, hammer drops. Nothing. No noise beyond the hammer. Put a fresh cap on, fire again...cap detonates but nothing else happens. Wait 10-15 seconds. Replace the cap again, pull the trigger another snap from the cap. 3-4 seconds later "kaboom!" Of course I missed. The does looks my way but doesn't run. Reload, fire, "snap"...nothing. Forgot to replace the cap. New cap, pull the trigger..."kaboom!" and a doe that was dead before she hit the ground. Probably a record for the number of trigger pulls on a muzzleloader on one deer. Hangfires are scary too though.

I've had one.
I was an idiot teenager and had a Ruger MKIII in my pocket. I went to pull it out and somehow pulled the trigger.
The bullet went into the floor an inch from my foot and my leg felt like it was on fire.
I dropped my pants and there was a red line down the top of my thigh. The bullet went down my let and exited my jeans right above the knee.

Very dangerous. A lot, maybe even most, NDs that are severe or fatal are upper thigh shots.
I'm very lucky. It was just a .22 but that's plenty big enough to sever a femoral artery. We were 20 miles from the nearest hospital.

I don't suppose it was a negligent discharge, since the Weatherby Mk V (.240) was pointed in a safe direction when I closed the bolt on a live round, but it certainly was an unexpected one. Turned out that the trigger group had come loose due, I guess, to vibration. It was held on by one (1, count 'em) screw which unscrewed itself far enough that the sear could not reach the cocking piece.

I snugged up the screw, which solved the immediate problem

Then I got rid of the gaudy thing, which solved the long term problem... for me, anyway.

Just remembered another one, this with a 12 ga. Auto-5. Home from the trap range, I was puttIng the gun away. I dropped the A-Zoom snap cap in, pulled the trigger (I know, but I can' t stand leaving a spring compressed), and BOOM.

This was on me. The snap cap is a maroon-ish color. The Federal shells I was using then were almost the same color, and I didn't look carefully. Blew the bejeezus out of a kitchen cabinet, on the other side of the wall.

More than once my dad told me, "Accidents are caused."

Many moons ago when i was 12 or 13, my neighbor who was 16 or so brought back my old savage 16 single. We talked at the door for a couple minutes and i headed out to the patio to clean it..... just as i got to the patio, the gun slipped from my grip and i instinctively raised my knee to catch it so the gun would not hit the concrete floor. BOOM put a prefect hole clear through the 2x6 beam in the roof.... Real glad that it was pointed up and away from me.... but lesson learned.... always ALWAYS when handed a gun check to make sure it is unloaded.... He had gone quail hunting, never got a shot.......

Kleanbore said:

What might one do with that information?

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Hopefully to learn from another’s experience, rather than experiencing it themselves.

Only one I,ve ever had in almost 50 years of shooting was with my first SKS. Nice Russian. Cleaned all the cosmo off and took it to the range. Being a semi auto I only loaded 3 rounds for the first shot. Let the bolt fly home and pulled the trigger. 3 shot burst. Firing pin stuck. Cleaned it and no more problems. Scared the hell out of me. It I had loaded all 10 rounds I would have tossed my shorts.

My dad reminded me of one that I have heard about several times... ever hear that story so many times it feels like you were there... When he and my mom had first gotten married, their next door neighbor bought a cheap surplus rifle from the local department store. He was proud of it having spent nearly an hour searching through the barrel to pick out the best of the bunch, and the one he bought had a folding bayonet. He was pretending to be fighting the Russians (most likely with a Russian rifle in his hands) and worked the action a few times dry firing the gun after each time proudly declaring that he had got another one, and another one... his wife told him to sit down and shut up to which he replied he was out of ammo and extended the bayonet and thrust it right through the roof of the single wide. Apparently the response was “get the duct tape mcklintock” as that was a common phrase around the house for years and it always brought out a chuckle from my dad.

maybe not actually an ND but close enough

There are two kinds of long term, active, regular shooter/hunters:. Them that has and, unless they are near perfect, them that will.

daniel craig said:

To me, the word accident implies something that happens without apparent cause and/or there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it.

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That’s cherry picking a small part of the common definition of accident.

Accident, noun:

1) an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.

2) an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.

Your definition is only the part I made yellow, but as you can see there is a lot left out if you just look at the yellow text.

Negligence has both a common and a legal definition.

Common: failure to take proper care in doing something.

Legal: failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another.

In the common definition we see the word “proper” which is a subjective judgment. You can refer to anything, including intentionally shooting a chosen target, as negligent if your personal idea of “proper care” is strict enough. For example someone could believe that shooting edible objects as targets for fun is not proper care of food and so everyone who shoots melons and pop bottles is by that standard negligent. They aren’t wrong, they just have different values.

Many of the stories posted here meet the common definition of negligence, as long as “proper care” is defined as following all four rules at all times. That doesn’t mean they aren’t accidents as well.

As for the legal definition of negligence, a few of the stories posted here meet that definition, but it isn’t the majority.

Whenever you have ambiguous words that can have different meanings, and “negligent” with its combination of a common subjective definition and a legal definition that has a specific meaning certainly qualifies as ambiguous when used in an online forum post, there is wisdom in thinking carefully before using that word. There are alternatives such as “unintentional” or “accidental” that are less prone to being twisted to an unintended meaning.

One. About 13 years ago.
A Taurus gaucho that was my first gun, it has an unbelievably light trigger. Cocked the hammer and was bringing the muzzle down on target and had my finger resting on the trigger, put one through the ceiling of the indoor range. Not my proudest moment. I did feel better when I noticed dozens of other holes there too...

A few years back, I aerated my humidor lid with a 38 spl because the humidity was to high, keeps perfect temp and humidity now...

I grew up around and shooting guns when I was younger, mostly .22 bolts and .22 revolvers & pistols. But I was never really a "gun enthusiast" until later in life.

Years ago, before I even knew what a Derringer was, I stumbled across my now father in laws gun on top of my then fiance's fridge. At the time there was this craze of lighters that resembled "Derringer like" pistols. I picked it up, pointed it straight up in the air like I was going to flick a flame when I pulled the trigger. Needless to say it was quite a surprise to me, my then fiance and future mother in law when a .22LR went off from a 1-2" barrel in their kitchen.

Bullet went through the ceiling but stopped at the roof of the single story ranch.

Its stuck with me to this day and no AD's or ND's beyond that.