Have you ever accidently discharged in your house or apartment?

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I had just bought a Security Six and I was reading a book on how to shoot. I decided to practice dry firing like it said in the book. I unloaded it and sat in my lounge chair and aimed at the gas valve handle on the fireplace. It clicked four times and then fired. I was so shocked that I couldn't move for a few minutes. Fortunately, the gun shot a little low and to the right and I just missed the valve. It went though the tile and the dry wall in the closet in the next room. It was loaded with a 38 special. Now I look into every chamber in my revolver and stick my finger in the chamber of my 1911 before I do anything. I left the hole in the tile to remind me.
 
My accidental discharge was over 20 years ago. The circumstances were stupidity, pure and simple. No excuses. I was stupid. Luckily only some inconsequential property was damaged, no one got hurt.

I'm older now and hopefully a bit wiser.
 
Here's an amusing one for ya.

I was eight years old at the time, my uncle (former NYPD officer, and still a nutcase) brought his bb revolver over to my house. He decided he wanted to discharge the C02 cartridge in the gun, so he shot this thing repeatedly, I mean, repeatedly at my moms legs, at the neighbors legs, into his hand a few times... then he asked me, "ya wanna feel it?" I said "Heck No!" he's like.. why not? I say to him, "cause I don't trust your crazy a$$!" (haha, imagine, an 8 year old saying this.) So he shoots the gun into his hand ANOTHER time to show me, it's just air! Fine!, I put my hand out, he shoots it.... BANG! I'm screaming at the top of my lungs... crying like a baby. he looks at me like I'm faking it. until I pull my hand away to reveal the massive amount of blood pouring from the palm of my hand. my mom jumps up like super woman, carries me to the sink to wash my hand under warm water. still bleeding like a faucet. she tries to wrap it til my dad gets home. not really sure of what to do. so at this point I'm fading in and out of conciousness, I just remember her yelling at my uncle the entire time, "you're an idiot! keep your d@mn guns at home!" etc...

so finally my dad gets home, and he looks at it, and begins sticking automotive magnets into the bleeding hole that's now home to a .177 calibre piece of (non-magnetic) copper.

but here's where the story gets better. so after searching up and down on the porch outside, sure enough they find a bb. so they patched me up, and called it a night.

18 years later, about two years ago, I was injured at work, I hyper-extended my thumb on the job, so naturally my company sends me to the workers comp doctor to get x-rays taken on my thumb. this beautiful, petite x-ray tech comes into the room I was waiting in, (trying not to make it obvious that I'm totally checking her out) she asks me "what do you have in your hand?!?" so I look at my hand and with confusion reply, nothing? see? empty!... "NoNoNo, what's IN your hand?!" hmm.... "IN my hand?! lemme see those!"

now, when you look at x-rays, it doesn't show skin, so, I'm thinking this little round ball is sitting between my fingers. I tell her... your machine is messed up! then it dawned on me, after putting my hand up to the picture... palm of my hand. wow... after all these years.. I still had that dang thing inside my hand. I thought.. How Cool Am I?!?!

So I ran out of the office, told her... gotta make a phone call... be RIGHT back! called my dad, hey dad!!! remember the time when such and such shot me with the bb gun?!?!
Dad: "yeah"
Me:"well guess what?!"
Dad: "it's still in there"

hmm... as if he'd known it all along. Parents! I swear!

in any case, the doctor told me there's so much scar tissue built around it, it makes no sense to take it out, it'll never bother you.

I'm thinking, Bother Me?!?! Hell, I wanna name it!


- Dacoda -
 
a sickening feeling I'llnever forget

Here is a sickening feeling of one. i was about 17-18 and was messing around with a guitar. A friend of mine found a .22 revolver that I had on my headboard. He was sitting in the middle of the bed and me on the edge. I told him it was loaded and figured he wouldn't do stupid things with a loaded gun. All I remeber is seeing him with it near the side of his head. then i looked down at my guitar and hear "BANG" and glass shattering from a light globe from a ceiling fan and immediately say him limp over with his head between his legs. I for sure that he shot himself. he didn't move nor respond to me saying his name........probably cause his shorts were full......... then I grabbed him and he was white as a ghost. I don't think he has ever touched another gun..
 
About 16yrs ago, a buddy of mine, that had only used BB guns up until this point asked if he could borrow my air rifle, thinking it would be about the same kind of power (it wasn't!!) he line up a target on his bed and shot it right then and there!! the .22 slug went through the target, then his duvet, then the mattress, then the bed base and finally into the central heating radiator on the wall which then proceeded to spray water all over the room.
 
Not inside and not with a firearm but this is a very good lesson.


I was standing out in the street with my friends, we were looking at his new pellet guns (some sort of revolver.) He was holding it and pointing it straight down when I asked "uhh...is it loaded?" He said, "i dunno" and pulled the trigger. It chipped the asphalt and bounced right into my other friend's crotch. Very very very painful. It could easily have been his eye instead. Very good lesson.
 
Never, I hope I never will. I was taught to check and double check every gun that is handed to you, to see if it's loaded.
 
only one accidental discharge,

My buddy found a mini 14 in a river, was rusted solid, no magazine.

I looked at it and said, I can make that work.

flipped it over, pulled the trigger guard appart (releasing the hammer)

POW put a nice hole in the celing

I carry the empty shell around with me as a reminder. Always treat it like its loaded, even if there's no possible way it could be.

but on a positive note, I did get it to shoot.
 
A little off-topic, but. . .

Dacoda:

Here is a similar story about my uncle:

A long time ago, he had been splitting wood with my father. One of them was holding some type of splitting tool and the other was hitting it with a hammer. I guess the hammer came down a little wrong, and there was a strange sound and my uncle felt something hit him in the leg. He found a cut on his leg about half an inch long, and an identical slice in his pants. He put a bandaid on it and went back to work. They found a chip had broken off of the log splitter.

Fast-forward 19 years!

All of a sudden one day, my uncle's knee suddenly swelled up to about twice normal and got really stiff and painfull. He went to the dr who found a foreign object in his knee with X-Ray. As soon as he saw the x-ray, my uncle realised what it was: That chip off the log splitter! It had actually lodged in his knee 19 years ago without doing any damage. And there it sat for all that time. For some reason, it eventually moved and touched something that his body didn't like, and his knee just blew up like a balloon.

They removed it orthoscopically, and we took it to my dad's garage and matched it to the depression in the edge of the splitter. It was about the size of a dime cut in half, but about twice as thick, and the rounded edge was razor sharp.
 
Never have had it personally happen but when I was in Army Basic Training we had an AD happen in the barracks while cleaning rifles. It was at the end of the cycle and we had to clean all of the weapons to to an asine level of cleanness so every weapon in the arms room was up there. Well one of the weapons that was issued to a soildier that got chaptered out somehow had gotten turned in a round in the chamber thankfully only a blank(though it sounded like a regular round w/o the blank adapter on the rifle. So one of the guys in my platoon pulled the trigger before he started to take it apart and that weapon went bang needless to say everyone looked like they had **** themselves and the drill sgt was in his office and looked like he was going to ****ing kill someone when he came out yelling.
 
legal question...

These are all great stories. More people have accidently popped off a round than I thought.

However, my other question is this: if you accidently shoot off a round in your apartment (not in a house) do you call the cops? All it takes is some cop to show up and throw the book at you for reckless endangerment, etc etc. Then you might lose your right to bear arms in a hurry.

My question is: has anyone here shot off a round in an apartment or suburbs... and not contacted the cops... hoping no one else heard the gun shot? Does anyone here know someone who accidently discharged, has been charged... and thus lost their right to buy/own guns??
 
I bought a $10 .22 rifle from a pawn shop 25 years ago for some reason the round would not chamber so I bumped the bolt with the palm of my hand and the round went off. My finger was no where near the trigger.
About an hour before I was doing the same thing but my wife kept walking in front of the gun and making stupid comments so I put it up.
From the angle from where I was sitting to the bullet hole in the wall and her height the bullet would have hit her in the forehead if she had been standing there.

The other time was at the range so I'm not sure if it counts.
New pistol + finger on exceptionally light trigger too soon = bullet hole in range floor a few feet form the line and slightly irritated RO
 
My father shot his ceiling once with an "unloaded" .22 rifle. First he pointed it at his foot, but he wised up, (somewhat), and decided to point it at the roof instead before pulling the trigger. BANG goes the rifle. My sister and I look at him like he's a dumb fscker, look at the hole in the ceiling, and laugh our asses off. If I recall correctly, he filled it in with toothpaste, and painted over it when the toothpaste hardened. My step-mom still dosen't know about it to this day, (this was over 10 years ago).

The closest I have come personally to a ND was when I was at my friends house when I was 15, and he let me look at his shotgun. He didn't tell me it was loaded, so I worked the action to find the feel, and I saw a cartrage pop up to the bolt. Not knowing how to stop it from feeding, I racked the round, and couldn't figure out how to dump the chamber, (I never handled a shotgun at that point). So I just turned the safety on, and handed it back to him, saying "here you go". Darn I felt like a fool.
 
Dad shot a hole in his headboard with a PPK once. It was the first (and last) time I saw dad work the action of a gun with his finger on the trigger. I remain convinced that he was actually trying to shoot mom in the butt when it happened.

She divorced him shortly thereafter. Wonder why.
 
Thankfully this was at the range, and not at home. I dont quite count this as an AD for the following reasons.

2 months ago i was at my local range firing my G26. When i was on my last magazine of the day, i decided to strip the gun and clean it. I removed the magazine, and foolishly forgot to rack the slide. I pointed the muzzle downrange, and squeezed the trigger. To my surprise, the gun went bang. I was a bit startled (thankfully i did have my ears on) and then embarrassed when i realized my mistake.

Fortunately, the only safety rule i violated was not verifying the gun was empty. I kept my muzzle downrange, checked my background, and only put my finger on the trigger when i was ready to fire it. This saved me from something more embarrasing or dangerous. Lesson learned: the 4 rules are there for a reason !
 
I dont quite count this as an AD for the following reasons.
Click to expand...

You're right it wasn't an AD it was a ND (negligent discharge).

Any time the gun goes bang when you don't want it to his an ND. Specificly in an adminstrative task like preparing the gun for take down.

Chris
 
Yeah

Pulled the mag from my Glock 19 pulled the trigger in preparation to dissassembly for cleaning and...you guessed it BANG!. Total stupidity on my part.

Fortunately, WHENEVER I pulled the trigger on any pistol at home for whatwever reason, I had gotton into the habit of pointing the pistol away from me at the ground. The only good part of this experience was a) to imbue a fresh sense of care and caution in handling firearms (no more ND's since then and this was the only one in 10 years of pistol ownership) and b) renewed respect for the 9mm round :evil:

That round went through both upper and lower mattresses on my bed (along with sheets, comforter, blanket), through 1/4 inch of carpet, another 1/4 inch of rubber beneath the carpet and burrowed at least 1/2 inch into the concrete below that, where it fragmented. I figure if it could do that (and this was WWB 115 JHP Wal-Mart ammo) it would likely serve me well as a self defense round :D

But the REAL scary part was the fact that despite the loud BANG in close quarters, no commotion happened in my apt complex. No neighbours wandering around, banging on my doors no cops summoned....NOTHING! we're talking a mainstream apt complex not located in a gang banger haven either.

However it was as if a round going off was routine - or else the walls/insulation were so good alot of the sound (tough to believe based on the ringing in my ears) was soaked up to the point that adjacent or two apts over, maybe it just sounded like a piece of furniture or dishware crashing.
 
Never!

All my pistols are kept loaded and ready to fire but I have never had had a negligent discharge. Before I disassemble a pistol I remove the magazine, rack the slide and remove the chambered round, visually inspect the chamber and magazine well, rack it three more times and inspect the chamber and magazine well one more time. Otherwise I keep my finger outside of the trigger guard. Do that every time and your chances of a negligent discharge should be zero.
 
I've had negligent discharges. I've never had an accidental discharge. The vast majority of the 'accidental' discharges I've heard of, sure sounded as if the action descrbed was a negligent discharge.

I've never reported a negligent discharge. I have examined where the bullet went. When I verified that the bullet had not exited my quarters and no one was injured, it wasn't any business of the authorities. On the other hand, if a bullet did leave my quarters or property and I could not verify where it went then the event would be the authorities' business. And I would notify them of my negligence.

I haven't read all of the posts on this thread. I did read where one poster kept all of his weapons loaded. I once did this. And it led to a negligent discharge. I unloaded the weapon and visually checked that it was unloaded. A few minutes later, I had a negligent discharge and shot the central air conditioner unit. What happened? I have several revolvers that are exact duplicates of other revolvers I own. Thinking I was handling the unloaded revolver, I picked up its loaded twin. The event convinced me to do two things: only load weapons intended for immediate use, carry, or home defense...and to check the status of any weapon every time I pick it up...no matter how many times I've already checked.
 
I came very close.

My father had put a rifle away in the gun safe, with the box magazine full, but the chamber empty. This is because he needs it for quick access to shoot groundhogs.

Under the assumtion that guns are generally unloaded in the safe, I pulled it out, opened the bolt (noting the lack of a round flying out), and even stuck my pinky in the chamber to verify a round was not stuck in the chamber (extractors can fail...I picked up this habit from my 10/22 that had a failing extractor).

Then I shut the bolt and put in on the bed. Of course, this stripped a round from the magazine and loaded it:what:

I later went to dryfire it, and actually had my finger on the trigger, when my psychotic safety tendencies forced me to double check the chamber. What do you know, a Hornady Vmax sailed across the room, and and I about wet my pants.

Be careful.
 
I had a brain fart a couple days ago.

I was working on a 1911, got out my Taurus automatic, set it aside and finshed working on the 1911.

Grabbed the Taurus, pointed it at the floor, racked the slide and ejected the chambered round, which I knew was in there.

What I forgot to do was remove the magazine first! I realized the slide sounded funny when it closed, so I racked it again and another round came out, that's when I saw I had left the magazine in it.

Since I had pointed it at the floor, I couldn't see that the magazine was still in the weapon.

:banghead:
 
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