Clean your gun loaded, How?

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ScottE

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Maybe I am just goofy, but how do you clean your gun while it's loaded? I usually at least field strip my gun to clean it.

"ENGLEWOOD --
A 22-year-old Englewood woman was hit by a bullet that tore through her apartment Monday night.

It happened about 7:40 p.m. at 1552 E. Girard. Police say a man was cleaning his 45-caliber gun in his ground-level apartment, when it accidentally discharged--tearing through his door, across a hallway, through his neighbor's wall and a couch--hitting the victim in the arm.

She was taken by ambulance to Swedish Medical Center with a non-life threatening injury.

The gun's owner faces possible charges for reckless discharge of a weapon. Police say you should never clean a loaded gun."

http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/...n=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
 
<<Maybe I am just goofy, but how do you clean your gun while it's loaded? >> (not pertaining to the poster)

Come on! That question is a no-brainer! Read your instruction manual on it.
If bought it used. Go to the manufactures’ website for the PDF. Download.

p.s. if you look up "gun cleaning", on the net. They should tell you what to do, "before cleaning".
 
"Cleaning" is the universal excuse for "I was playing quick-draw, clearing the house, pointing and clicking at various household objects, etc etc."

People are idiots and "it just went off while I was cleaning it" is the best argument against gun ownership that I can think of. There needs to be an IQ test attached to the Form 4. :rolleyes:
 
Hmmm.... Well, there are a few firearm designs that require the trigger to be pulled in order to field strip. That's always made me a little nervous.

But, following proper procedure dictates making darn sure the thing is absolutely empty before pulling the trigger!
 
now by cleaning do they mean wiping it down. because the first thing i do when i clean a fire arm is disassamble it, which requires UNLOADING.
 
When I read such stories, I just have to ask myself, "Why?!" Is it because the person was not raised around firearms? Were they never told the true power behind a projectile? Or, do they think, "I'm careful...it could never happen to me." It simply makes no sense, especially in an apartment setting to risk accidental discharges.

A very similar event happended to my apartment neighbor when I was student teaching. Two blind gentlemen were renting the rear, lower-level apartment. I rented the front, upper-level apartment. A woman rented the rear, upper-level apartment. One day I came home and saw a swarm of police, and my female neighbor standing outside.

The blind guys were messing around with a loaded rifle...it discharged through their ceiling, her floor, table, ceiling lamp, ceiling and the building's roof. :confused:
 
isnt there a law that prohibts blind people from handling firearms, driving cars, operating heavy machaniery etc?
 
Well now, remember folks. Some weapons require a firing pin/hammer to be forward in order to disassemble the weapon, in these rare occasions its easily possible to belive someone simply pulls the trigger to facilitate this with out actually bother to check that the weapon is clear. I had a accidental discharge like that myself when I was 14. ( I thought I had cleared the weapon, and learned a important lesson about gravity vs tipping the weapon the wrong way when pulling the bolt back) luckily the .22 round only manage to penatrate 3 walls and lodged in a 2x4 and was hidden with a quick application of spackling compound.( I don't condone this behavior now days but when your 14 and you see your rifle getting grounded for life a young man will go to great lengths) I am just saying it can happen.

However I have to also agree that 9 times out of 10 its usually tacti-bob practising his quick draw in front of a full length mirror.
 
I'd venture to say in 90% of these incidents they are not "cleaning" their gun. They are doing something stupid and negligent. It goes right along the same lines as the "it just went off" garbage.
 
I keep trying to clean mine loaded but the funniest thing keeps happening. I release the slide into battery with the take down pin removed. I pull the trigger to remove the slide and it makes this loud obnoxious noise and sends the slide back to the rear...
 
I have a friend who shot off his right index finger (yes, off, o-f-f off, shot it off, he has three fingers now) while "cleaning" his gun.

and if you think that I believe that he shot his finger off, or this man shot through his door, or anyone else shot anything while "cleaning their gun" I have some ocean side property in oklahoma that you would love...

edit: Echo Tango... <shifty eyes> toothpaste works well too for small holes caused by... creative targets...
 
Hmmm.... Well, there are a few firearm designs that require the trigger to be pulled in order to field strip. That's always made me a little nervous.

But, following proper procedure dictates making darn sure the thing is absolutely empty before pulling the trigger!
Click to expand...

A smart man on this site formerly recommended keeping a 5 gallon bucket of sand in the closet and using it as a back stop when you have to pull the trigger or cycle live rounds through the action inside the house. Not a bad idea and cheap to set up.
 
As a former insurance fraud investigator, I once noted it was not uncommon for very depressed (suicidal?? :confused:) people to neglect to unload their firearms prior to cleaning them. An alarming number of times, they apparently directed the muzzle at the side of their own heads while pressing the trigger, presumably to determine if the piece was, in fact, unloaded. . .:banghead:

If there was a cleaning kit in the room, the local law enforcement & coroner (an elected official) was likely to spare the family further grief by ruling it an accidental death.
 
Just to play devils advocate here, do we know exactely how said idiot was cleaning his weapon?

I normally clean my carry gun after a range outing, field stripped and unloaded of course. In between outings, lint may get into the little nooks and crannies here and there. After raising the hammer, I may just use one of those keyboard vacuums in order to get rid of that lint and dust, no field stripping or unloading neccessary.

Granted, this story sounds like negligence any way you slice it, but the devil is in the details...
 
Scbair is right on that aspect of the "cleaning gun" death. In my home town, the bank cashier was shot. A son was a priest, a daughter was a nun, and a suicide could not be given a Catholic mass or buried in the church cemetery, so he "his gun went off while he was cleaning it." Two weeks later, $40,000 (a whooole lot of money at the time) was found missing from accounts he controlled.

Jim
 
I don't know, but a 15 year old boy a mile down the road did it 3 years ago on mother's day morning and accidentally put a .22 cal. bullet in his head.

broke a LOT of hearts.

knowing how to properly unload / check unloaded a weapon is step 1 to being "professional enough" to even touch it.
 
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