Accidental Discharges

[Mike1234567]

I was very tired... about 2AM. I got up from my chair not noticing that my Kel-Tec P11 (the side clip) had loosened itself from my pants pocket... dropped it on the hard floor and... *BANG*. I darned near shot my dog and fragments flew upward grazing my palm and forearm before lodging in the ceiling. I no longer carry the P11 with a round chambered and am buying a Ruger SR9c as a replacement as soon as I have the spare cash... the SR9c has a drop safety and thumb safety which will not slow my reaction time anywhere near as much as having to rack the slide. I will be disabling the mag safety though.

 

[JVaughn]

Case in point for the old operator's manual warning: any mechanical device can fail. Glad you were pointing it away from yourself and others and no one was hurt. I would take that pistol out of service immediately and have it repaired before any more ammo was put in the chamber.

 

[bergmen]

Has an accidental discharge happened to any of you guys?

Never in over 50 years of handling/hunting/shooting with shotguns/rifles/handguns.

But what happened to you seems as though you had nothing to do with it.

Dan

 

[Mr. Farknocker]

I've had a few accidental discharges in my younger years but all of them turned put to be negative.

All kidding aside, I think our attitude and approach should be different with respect to accidental discharges in the home. As opposed to saying it's your fault, it's not your fault or somewhere in between, we should assume that its always our responsibility for all discharges, unintended or otherwise. This would foster a change in behavior and a more safe practice when it comes to handling firearms.

When I took a firearm training course, one of the basic tenet taught was that you are strictly liable for any injury or death caused by your handling of a firearm. Firearms just don't load themselves and fire by themselves without some human interaction, intentional or otherwise. Another tenet that was taught was that the firearm should be treated as being loaded at all times and that you should never point the firearm at something you either do not want to destroy or kill. If your actions are guided by these tenets, you will never have to test whether the first tenet enunciated above is in fact true.

My firearms instructor is the local sig sauer representative, trains the local police in firearms safety and serves as an expert witness for the County defending police officers faced with criminal charges and civil claims for negligent handling of firearms while on duty. His first question to the class was "where do you point the firearm when loading and unloading it in the house?" He received numerous responses from the class. One person said "up in the air". Another said " to the ground" while another person said "in a safe direction". All of the answers sounded reasonable and would probably do the trick except that no one answer could be applied in every situation. The correct answer was "you point it to a device designed to safely capture a round every time." He then threw a sheet of kevlar carpet on the floor and said that he always ask the policemen/women attending his class to unload their firearms at the start of the class be pointing their firearms at the kevlar carpet. His mentioned that request is often met with jeers and snickers. My trainer then said that he's had to replace the carpet every year because a cop blows a hole in it while unloading his weapon. His lesson was quite clear: use a device used to unload/load your firearm in your home. In this instance, he recommended the use of a 5 gallon bucket filled with sand. It's cheap, simple and may save a life.

 

[royal barnes]

Generally speaking if the firing pin had been jammed forward the round under the hammer would have fired and every one after it in the mag would have also. Since this did not happen the likely culprit would be a faulty trigger or a finger on the trigger.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Than I would guess faulty trigger. There is little to be gained by the OP from being dishonest about the cause, yet going out of his way to post a topic concerning his own mishap. If the incident was indeed due to a finger on the trigger, Occam's Razor would tell us that he would not have posted at all.

 

[Marlin60Man]

Isn't it possible that if the firing pin were stuck, that the initial strike of the primer could have worked it loose and prevented from it also firing the subsequent rounds?

 

[Owen Sparks]

If I need to drop the slide to chamber a round or dry fire I always use the sights. That way I am aware where the muzzel is pointed. I usually aim at the juncture of the wall and floor preferably in a corner. There is a lot of lumber there to stop a stray bullet in case of a mechanical failure or AD.

 

[iLikeOldgunsIlikeNewGuns]

what marlin60man said, my hunch is still that the firing-pin was stuck forward, and that accidental discharge unstuck the firing pin, thus no second shot.

 

[royal barnes]

I didn't say he lied about where his finger was I just said he may have inadvertantly had his finger on the trigger. It could happen to any of us.

 

[x_wrench]

i had one back in my early twenties. it was a Smith and Wesson 686 (357 magnum). i was very lucky in that i had been shooting speer's plastic training bullets from it, powered only by the primer. it put a dent in the drywall, but that was it. but, just like you, it shook me up pretty bad. if it had been a full power load, it would have went thru the wall, and outside. who only knows what would have happened then. it certainly drove the point home. so far, knock on wood, it has been the only one. i hope it was the last!

 

[Flopsweat]

...

For someone in a house or apartment, a substitute for a bucket of sand or dirt,might be a thick stack of magazines or books. While the bibliophile in me cringes at the thought of blowing a hole in a bunch of books, it might not be so sacrilegious to some.

I use a box of old phone books (2 boxes actually, stacked) about 18" deep. Easy to move, hard to spill.

 

[MyGreenGuns]

I was nearly shot in the back from a NEGLIGENT discharge. I usually chime in on the threads that say "Accidental" to correct them.

Yours however was legitly an accident, your machine malfunctioned. Luckily you followed the rules and everyone is OK.

My "safe direction" is the floor in the corner of my room. It used to be the other corner of my room. One day I was under the house to add cable and realized I had been pointing my gun at the waterpipes under the floor. If I shoot through the floor now, its just carpet, wood then dirt.

My dog would make a mess out of a sand bucket, but the phone books are a reasonable idea for my situation.

Thank you for sharing!