Shooting at the local Gun Store.

[M2 Carbine]

About four minutes away from home is a small, but well stocked gun store.
It's an old time atmosphere where the regulars sit around, talk guns and cuss anti gun people.
I've bought a number of guns there when the only reason I stopped in was to drink coffee and shoot the bull.

Tuesday the worst thing happened.

I haven't talked to anyone involved and news reports are known not to always be accurate, so I won't comment on what happened except to say that APPARENTLY several very experienced gun people made several very bad mistakes.

I haven't heard how the injured man is doing.




Reported in the Weatherford Democrat. (newspaper)


"Sept. 12, 2007

Man accidentally shot in face
Danie M. Huffman

[email protected]

An accidental weapon discharge resulted in a man being hospitalized Tuesday morning.

The victim, ***** ********, 69, of Weatherford, was shot in the face with a 9mm handgun while visiting The Gun Store.

The victim was reportedly transported to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth by air ambulance.

The gun shop, located in the 4400 block of Tin Top Road, has been in business for several years. The store is currently closed with a gate and padlock.

Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said three people were involved in the shooting and investigators are working the case.

Fowler said apparently, two men came into the store with the handgun and as the trio were conversing, the gun discharged around 10 a.m.

“He is alive,” Fowler said Tuesday afternoon. “It was just a straight-up accidental shooting.”

In a preliminary investigation, witnesses reported ******** entered the store with an friend and sat near a counter. They said another individual inside the store handed the handgun to the attendant for inspection. The employee told deputies he attempted to make sure the weapon was not loaded when it discharged, seriously wounding the man.

As of press time, ******** remained in critical condition in a JPS intensive care unit from a bullet wound which penetrated below his left eye.

A formal investigation is being conducted."

 

[panther22]

That is sad. I hope the best for the guy that was shot.
I worked in a gun store a number of years ago. Right after deer season we had a young guy come in with his lever action Marlin. He wanted to buy a bolt action and trade the lever gun in. When he showed it to me, the hammer was back and cocked. I checked it carefully and, yes, it was loaded, a round in the chamber!!! He had been driving around in his truck with it that way all day!!
After that, whenever anybody brought in a gun to trade or sell, we treated it like it was loaded.

 

[strat81]

Dick Cheney wasn't involved, was he?

Whenever I know I'll be transporting a firearm somewhere that a person will have to inspect it or handle it, I run a cable lock through the action. That way, when they open the case they know it is not loaded or functional.

Still kinda gives me the willies when I walk around at a gun show and see folks carrying whatever, unholstered and uncased. Gun show shootings are rare (but they do happen). Ironically, the safest I feel around other people with guns is at the skeet and trap ranges across from the clubhouse at the range. I have to check in when I go so I always have to park.

I hope the guy makes it out ok.

 

[pete f]

Pretty common for gunshops that actually have a gun smith or at least a gun mechanic to have people bring in loaded guns. It can usually be traced to either

people not knowing its loaded, totally unskilled in gun handling,

people knowing its loaded but lacking the skill to unload it,

weapons breaking and leaving the weapon unable to unload until repairs were made,

lastly People who were too stupid to check before they came in.


We had a clearing box, which was just a 2 foot tall wooden box full of news paper, and used that as a safe stop for hand guns, and would make sure all hand guns got cleared over that.

We had a guy come in with a brand new big name rifle that had not gone off when he pulled the trigger. He could not get the bolt all the way open in the field, and could not get the safety off or on. The smith took it downstairs, and had it in his vise, he tried to move things, nothing, so the next step was remove it from the stock and clamp the action back in the vise, however he had just removed the forward action screw and started to remove the rear screw when the gun went off. The action bounced out of his hands and skittered across the floor. The only damage was a hole in the block wall of the basement, unless you count laundry damage.

The gun was a .338 mag, and the only thing we could ever find was a hefty scratch in the bolt collar, but the rifle was trash and a nice letter from us to the manufacturer resulted in a warranty replacement. (the rifle was trash because it had fired out of battery, resulting in all the recoil being absorbed by 10% of the bolt lugs, resulting in a very obvious offset of the lug.)

The only acceptable hypothisis' we could come up with were that in manufacture, a piece of something was caught in the bolt or the trigger, resulting in it hanging up the bolt part way open. loosening the action from the stock somehow gave that chunk a way out, letting the action go off.

 

[- J -]

9mm under the eye and he's alive? Tough man, and... weak caliber? (fact: I own a 9mm pistol and like the caliber )

I hope he recovers OK, and that the man who discharged learns the lesson about safety rules.

 

[MD_Willington]

Scary, reminds me of one time I was in a gun shop and some bone head kid showing off for his friends picked up an AR and was waving it around in my direction, I told the kid straight up, "You point that thing at me one more time and I'll shove it up your...." The owner came over and told the kids to "get the ... out of his shop"...

 

[Nil]

Ironically, the safest I feel around other people with guns is at the skeet and trap ranges across from the clubhouse at the range. I have to check in when I go so I always have to park.

Oddly enough, I feel the least safe around guns when I'm shooting clay sports. It seems that many shotgunners are incapable of understanding the necessity of muzzle discipline.

 

[Rumble]

9mm under the eye and he's alive? Tough man, and... weak caliber? (fact: I own a 9mm pistol and like the caliber )

I hope he recovers OK, and that the man who discharged learns the lesson about safety rules.

Well, from everything I've ever read (here and there and everywhere), gunshot wounds are not always predictable. In fact, it seems like face wounds, especially, act funny - there's a whole lotta bone and stuff to change the bullet direction. It could be a matter of half-an-inch between "bad wound" and "fatal."

I hope the guy recovers - what a terrible thing to have happen.

 

[MinnMooney]

I sure hope that the guy makes a full recovery from this terrible accident. I'm sure that all parties involved feel horrible.

I was in Cabela's the other evening with my grown son looking at some rifles when over his shoulder I noticed a guy working the action of a pump shotgun while it was pointed directly at my boy's back. I grab my boy and moved him to the side. The pump guy looked at me like he'd been slighted so I said that he should be pointing that thing toward the roof. He replied with the classic, "I checked and it's unloaded."
I wasn't impressed.

 

[M2 Carbine]

I hope the guy recovers - what a terrible thing to have happen.

Yes, it's amazing how a person's whole life can change in a second.

I know most of the regulars and since the writeup said the two men were sitting down they were probably a couple regulars. I don't know the name, but I'm bad with names.

There's only one "employee" but the owner is in and out the store.
The employee is a nice fellow that's been around guns all his life and worked in gun stores ever since I've known him.
If he is the "employee" that was checking the gun, no matter what reason the gun fired, this will tear him up.

Of course the store has been closed the last couple days I drove buy.

 

[Tom Servo]

Actually, this is quite common (the loaded gun, not the shooting).

Every time a gun is handed to me, I check it. I've twice had people bring in guns for trade that had a round in the chamber, and I've had people bring guns off the range in the same condition.

In almost every case, the reply was, "well...I dropped the magazine." I once had a kid come off the range to discuss a problem he was having with his Sig. He swept me with the muzzle twice, and when I said not to, he replied, "it's unloaded." I grabbed the gun, racked the slide, and out popped a live round.

I was not kind.

Don't get me started on "deer hunters."

I think it goes back to the fact that 90% of the people buying guns nowadays have no actual training. Nobody grows up with guns anymore, and the habits our parents taught us aren't so common.

 

[highfive]

I really hope he recovers from all this and i really hope the guy learns his lesson about checking guns...it can happened to anyone maybe but it never hurts to check twice, did I say twice...3, 4 times, it doesn't hurt.

 

[Master Blaster]

Dick Cheney wasn't involved, was he?

Of course not, Lawyer season doesnt open till next month, and you need at least a 28 guage with no 7 shot for that anyway.

 

[Blackbeard]

9mm under the eye and he's alive? Tough man, and... weak caliber? (fact: I own a 9mm pistol and like the caliber )

It stopped him, didn't it?

 

[Lonestar49]

Very sad

...

First, I hope the man recovers, along with the gun attendant, as I have little doubt that this was an AD, that turned into a ND, simply by where the gun was pointing.

I'd be interested to know what type of handgun it was, if the OP or any of the members responding, finds out.

Again, my best wishes for both parties hurt in this accident. As it will leave scars on both.


LS

 

[Lonestar49]

Very sad

double post

 

[fred in nc]

There is nothing more uncommon than common sense. The first rule of firearms safety is to treat every gun as if it's loaded. I've seen my share of idiots and bozos at the range over the years too.

 

[unrealtrip]

Rule #1: Do not point a gun at anything you do not wish to destroy.

Apparently the person who had the NG failed to respect rule #1. Sorry to hear about the mistake, hope the guy that got shot makes it out ok.