Parks Ranger Accidentally Fires Gun in Apartment

this is why you always check your guns before playing with them. Then, after you check them, you check them again.

I know that many of you are perfect, and always check your guns, and would NEVER have an accidental discharge. And I pray you never do, but for all the rest of us lowly humans, I offer this story, and tis true. A friend of mine, whom I knew when working for several years in Colorado, was a patrloman for the Colorado State Patrol, and was one time preparing for a "short notice" inspection by the Governor of Colo. He happened to be on duty, and had cleaned his car, etc, and was wiping down his S&W Model 66 (or 686, can't rmember which they carried at the time), and had a slight loss of memory for a split second, and thought he had emptied the gun before "dusting it off" one more time. Probably because of rushing around, cleaning and spit polishing everything. Well, seated in his cruiser, he pulled the trigger to move the cylinder flute, put a .38+P though the roof of the car, and was immediately taken out of the show, and had to go hide with the car while the surprise visit took place. He was suspended for a day or two, everyone laughed, and got over it. Less than two years later, they made him a firearms instructor (he was a great officer, excellent shot, and perfect choice), partly BECAUSE he had a personal "war" story to relate. He later became a sgt, Lt, and I believe retired as a captain. Colorado Trooper Staff are apparently much more sympathetic and understanding of such "human" lapses, more so than the Ohio State Patrol, who probably would have used the officer to set an example, by firing and humiliating, thus scaring the others. I was not an Ohio trooper, but I was trained at their academy, having been sent there by my agency, an Ohio municipality. I think Ohio tries to piss of their trooper regularly, so they take it out on the public by being agressive with the ticketbook. Just makes their high stress job more stressful.

someone has beat me to it.
I have always wanted to shoot a fly in my house with a gun.
"practicing", pish tosh, that fly was taunting her.

I know of quite a few a/d's by customs personell. I've seen file cabinets shot, paper shredders shot. One inspector was teaching the girls safe handling of a shotgun. He put a round of #4 buckshot thru the roof. He was no longer allowed to carry his duty weapon on his side as it was only to be carried in an ankle holster with an empty chamber. We called him Barney.

One agent in the D.C. field office let one go and missed a secretary be 2 feet in the next office.

Another agent in Detroit was getting his shotgun from the trunk of his vehicle and put a slug thru his car rendering it useless.

One agent shot his own hand while trying to take down his glock. He was no longer fit for duty and was fired.

I'm sure there were many others that were not reported.

I'm just grateful that no one was killed or injured (other than the agent that shot his hand).

You can't blame her. Blame the people who trained her.

Click to expand...

No thanks, I'll blame her.
Unless they taught her to practice her draw in her apartment, disengage the safety and pull the trigger, all while pointing the gun at the neighbors apartment.

Geez, nobody is ever to blame anymore, it's always someone else.
Give me a break!

This is what can and DOES happen
(eventually) when you keep one one in the 'pipe' 24/7.

I want to see what she looks like.
If she's hot she gets a pass.
As long as I get to be her next instructor.

I thought it was always a bad idea to dry fire an automatic...?

Click to expand...

Dry fire is okay. This was 'wet' fire.

... and it HAD to be a woman. I wonder about her new nickname; has to be one.

Seriously, lapses are a fact of life. There are only two kinds of gun owners and handlers; those who have had negligent discharges and those who will have negligent discharges. I've had mine. One. Long ago. I haven't had another. (Better than I've done with marriages; that's another story...)

I'd bet she won't do that again. Happily, it is not a tragic lesson, just an embarassing one.

The ranger, Cynthia Claggett, was practicing drawing her sidearm at her apartment in the 700 block of Southeast 14th Street about 2 a.m. May 31 when she fired a single round, according to a Loveland police incident report.

The bullet smashed through the shower wall at which she was aiming and into an adjacent apartment, which was unoccupied at the time.

Claggett, 29, told police that the third time she pulled out the gun, a .45-caliber semiautomatic, she disengaged the thumb safety and pulled the trigger, firing a single round.

Click to expand...

Park Ranger getting home from work at 0200? Maybe a stopover at the local watering hole on the way home?

This is what can and DOES happen (eventually) when you keep one one in the 'pipe' 24/7.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but that is not the most intelligent post I've read lately. An awful lot of us have "kept one in the pipe 24/7" for twenty, thirty, or more years. Yes, complacency is a Bad Thing. However, carrying Condition One does not automatically equate to complacency.

The most important safety device is between your ears. Unfortunately, there are some, ahhh... variables in the aforementioned safety devices.

Orionengnr, runrabbitrun is correct. As stated before, some of the readers and posters here ARE perfect, and we are glad they come down from the heavens to be with us. However, the perfect ones should not expect us humans to be perfect. After all, we were born sinners.

There are only two kinds of gun owners and handlers; those who have had negligent discharges and those who will have negligent discharges.

Click to expand...

I'd bet she won't do that again.

Click to expand...

How do you reconcile these two statements?

This was no accident. It was a negligent discharge. If this had been a non-LEO type person you can bet the media would be calling it what it was.

think about it, this would have to be either his daughter, or grand daughter! lol!

Click to expand...

Yep Moooose, you are totally correct. I guess time just flies when you are having fun..................... (sigh) I guess I have been having too much fun over the last few decades!

I see no difference in calling it an accidental discharge or a negligent discharge. Semantics. When you screw up and wreck a car, its called an accident, not a negligent. Same sort of mental lapse of reason or attention involved.

What are the chances that alcohol was not involved?

If I drop my pistol and it discharges upon striking the ground, that's an accidental discharge.

If stupid me puts my stupid finger on the trigger of a loaded pistol and then presses said trigger with my aforementioned stupid finger, resulting in a fired round, that's a negligent discharge.

Accident vs Negligent

For what it's worth, the only reason to hammer on the "negligent" label is to make it plain to someone that, even though the event was accidental, it was WRONG AND STUPID.

Now, if you want to use that label to emphasize, for yourself, that something you yourself have done was wrong and stupid, I have no problem with that.

To insist on slapping that label on someone else is making a value judgement that simply may not be appropriate.

For what it's worth, they DO have an equivalent in the world of traffic tickets: "driving without due care and attention."

It's used to assign blame and give a boost to the fine that can be assessed.

Once a person accepts/acknowledges that he, himself, caused the accident, I go no further with adding blame labels.

When a person recognizes his responsibility and cause, you've arrived where you need to be.

Blame does nothing to improve that.

It's an accident. Recognize the cause, learn from it, and move on.

It happens.....

Dear RRR,

It astounds me that you can say, with a straight face, that when a person has thumbed off the safety and pulled the trigger, the reason the gun shot is because she kept one in the chamber. If she had not released the safety and pulled the trigger, that live round would have remained safely in the chamber indefinitely.

LBS

I commend this woman for not claiming that "it just went off" ( ). Hopefully, lesson learned, and all's well that ends well!

And yep, it IS instructive to note that there are two distinct types of "Accidents" - those caused by the negligence of one or more persons, and those (which might be termed 'true accidents') which are not caused by the negligence of anyone, but which are simply sheer misfortune or misadventure.

Wow, whoever thought being a park ranger would require such advanced tactical training?

I guess all those underage drinkers in the woods must really be causing a ruckus if they need to hire Annie Oakley here to reign them in.

If I drop my pistol and it discharges upon striking the ground, that's an accidental discharge.

If stupid me puts my stupid finger on the trigger of a loaded pistol and then presses said trigger with my aforementioned stupid finger, resulting in a fired round, that's a negligent discharge.

Click to expand...

By a lot of member's logic here, they would both be negligent discharges, because you didn't do a good enough job of securing your weapon to not drop it.

This is a game that can keep going. The way I see it, this is a case of an accidental discharge. She accidentally took off her thumb safety.

I always check the chamber of any gun I'm handed after I take the magazine out. I don't carry a gun because I live in Illinois. I don't keep any of my guns loaded because I don't own them for self defense. I keep my ammunition in a lock box without any firearms that only I have the keys for. The way I see it, I have very low chances of ever having an accidental or negligent discharge. The whole with familiarity comes complacency argument kind of worries me though. Even though I know my guns are always unloaded, I always check them when I handle them. I don't know why people who carry could always just assume that they cleared their chamber.

A lot of members on here with the "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when" outlook are also the ones who seem to really be pushing the negligence as opposed to accident opinion. Something about that seems wrong to me. Just my opinion though.

Look...
All I'm saying about one in the pipe is.
It's in THESE instances when these 'accidents' seem to happen.

I've learned some stuff about the 'one in the pipe 24/7' crowd.
They appear to be very competent individuals on the surface,
who have demonstrated why they need to be hot 24/7.
I understand it and respect their decision to carry that way.
It's the one's like in this instances (the Ranger, the US Marshal a few weeks ago,
the DEA agent in the class room telling the kids he's the only one qualified to handle this BANG... etc).
These are all competent people too and proficient with their firearms I imagine.
Right up to the time the trigger finger is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I also want to say again, I respect your RIGHT to keep your gun with a bullet in the chamber 24/7.
But as I've said before, you come into my house you WILL be with-out one in the pipe or your not welcome.
Nothing personal. It's simply about safety and that's it...

Now respect MY RIGHT to have such
a safety rule as I respect YOUR rights to keep one in the chamber 24/7.
OK?
Thanks

There seems to be an abundance of "zero tolerance" mentality among some gun enthusiasts on the internet. I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance people (seems appropriate, doesn't it?). To all of you that have never had a gun go off when you didn't want it to, and some of you never will...kudos!....but I have to ask, have you ever stubbed your toe, banged your head on a low hanging object, or cut your finger? I ask that, because that is just how easy it might be to tap the trigger on a gun, in a split second of misdirected thought waves. As I stated before, a police officer even managed to do a double action pull on a quite otherwise "safe" S&W revolver. Is that officer a reckless, dangerous gun handler? Naw. Just had a bad moment. Would I trust him to back me up, litterally, armed to the teeth, standing right behind me with deadly armament, ready to charge through a doorway? Ofc. John R. might have been one of the best shooters the Colorado SP ever had, so I would have been happy to have him back me up. As far as passing judgement on a person for having an accidental/negligent discharge, I think we can reflect over how we can ALL benefit from a life lesson (offered here at someone else's expense) about gun safety/practicing/etc. I find rebukes to pretty much be unproductive after a person has deprecated themselves already. I think it's a golden rule kind of thing...

Archie said:

There are only two kinds of gun owners and handlers; those who have had negligent discharges and those who will have negligent discharges.

I'd bet she won't do that again.

Click to expand...

Gryffydd said:

How do you reconcile these two statements?

Click to expand...

Negligent (accidental, unforeseen, unintentional) discharges happen to more or less everyone, once. From my experience, more unintentional discharges happen by 'zero tolerance over careful' gun possessors than those (of us) who have had one sometime in the past.

The late Will Rogers once said, "There are three types of people: Those who learn by reading, those who learn by observing others and those who just have to [urinate] on the electric fence for themselves."

There are some who do that sort of thing more than once, I suppose. Not many. I know of one, and I don't associate with him anymore.

Be well, cousin Welshman.