# I know it rates as a Darwin Award



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

... and I should accept that there will always be folks getting Darwin Awards but some 21 year olds just aren't meant to be licensed for concealed carry or allowed to own hand guns. Or at least need to be properly safety trained before they get either of them.

The last few days our local paper has carried stories about a 21 year olds death by gunshot.

First day, the short blurb article simply said he was found dead in his residence of a gunshot wound.

The next days blurb article said it was an accidental self inflicted wound and his death announcement was in the obits.

Finally yesterday's in depth article said that he blew his brains out proving to his 20 year old wife and others in his home that the safety on his Colt semiautomatic rendered his weapon totally harmless by aiming it in his ear and pulling the trigger but he didn't actually have the safety engaged and died instantly of a gunshot wound to the head.

Call me old fashioned or overly respective of the lethality of percussion powered long distance cordless drills but I would never aim a loaded weapon at myself in jest or to prove a point of the effectiveness of the safety.

Even when cleaning my revolvers and needing to swab the business end I often notice myself holding them angle aimed at an outside wall over my forearms and when using a white paper to illuminate the barrel for inspection , I catch myself shifting the weapon at 4 or 5 different off self target angles to inspect the business end with the breach open. Only time I may look straight down a barrel is if its a fully field stripped semiautomatic and the barrel nothing more than a piece of steel tubing in my hand or I consciously center my revolvers for barrel inspection and even when overcoming my subconscious avoidance of staring down the barrel, I do it quickly as possible.

I don't know if it is how my family and instructors trained me , knowing of 3 childhood friends killed in accidental shootings or a bit of both, but my respect of weapons is now totally instinct.

Before I ever clean or oil any of my weapons, I not only unload them , I count the rounds of ammunition and brass if I have fired it at least 3 times to make sure I got them all.


One part of me wants to say his kid asked for and deserved his Darwin Award but the other part of me wishes this kid had taken some NRA certified, veteran LEO range officer run training before the 11 months or less he had been carrying because the stupidity this kid died of could have easily been trained out of him and he wouldn't be part of the statistics anti 2nd Amendment advocates will be quoting for years to come .

As I said call me old fashioned or overly respective of weapons, but you can also call me over 50 years old, carrying CCW licensed since I myself was 21 and most of all you can call me still alive.


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## bajiay (Apr 8, 2008)

So sad ...


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## farmrbrown (Jun 25, 2012)

No Shrek, unfortunately, you are just........right.

I thought my dad was a little over the top with his safety rules and rants, but I listened and obeyed anyway.
One day a few years after he was dead and I was a teenager, a friend and I pulled out an old .22 rifle of his in the back bedroom. I assured him it was "unloaded".......I was glad that it was pointed at the ceiling when he pulled the trigger and all that was above us was an empty attic.:facepalm:
I don't know if I've ever been as scared and embarrassed since then.......and grateful to my dad for treating me, him and everyone else as if they were the biggest idiot on the planet.:goodjob:
Countless times over the years, I've gently pushed or pulled the barrel of an "empty" firearm to a safe direction, pulled the slide, bolt or cylinder open, and repeated that phrase he hammered into my head.
"Don't you know? *Everyone* is accidentally shot with an _unloaded_ gun!"


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Here in Michigan you have to take a class to get a cc permit.

My dad was also a stickler on safety on every piece of farm equipment and fire arms. His NUMBER ONE rule was always assume a fire arm is loaded so keep it pointed in a safe direction and check the chamber and never ever put a finger on that trigger in a house or any other building car or truck.

Never ever try to show off for friends you may get teases but you keep all your body parts intact that way.

 Al


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## JJ Grandits (Nov 10, 2002)

When I teach hunter safety one of the stock phases I use in every class is, "From this day forward. For the rest of your life. EVERY firearm you see or handle will be loaded with a round chambered, a broken safety and a hair trigger. When you go into a gun store all those guns on the self are loaded and ready to fire. When you disassemble a firearm to clean it you will know it is loaded and ready to fire. When you put it back together it is loaded and ready to fire. There is no excuse. ALL GUNS ARE LOADED AND READY TO FIRE. There is no such thing as a firearm accident. There is only stupidity and you will be held responsible." I can not tolerate any safety issue when handling firearms and will instantly and harshly correct any young person or adult who breaks the rules.


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

JJ Grandits said:


> ALL GUNS ARE LOADED AND READY TO FIRE. There is no such thing as a firearm accident.


*Gun safety golden rule. *Darned good one too. I recall one time when I "dry fired" a shotgun into the air after reloading just to make sure, only to find a shell stuck and was not unloaded. The only time I consider (part of) a gun unloaded is if the barrel is taken off and I can look through it when I am cleaning it (my muzzleloader). Otherwise it is loaded, all the time, as far as I am concerned. 

But the incident in the original post is not a new one. People have been killing themselves or others this way for hundreds of years, playing pranks with supposedly unloaded weapons.


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

I had two friends that were Trained LEO's. They was at the Range one day, was out in Parking Lot, one made a bet he could kick Pistol out of the others Hand before he could Draw and Pull the Trigger. The guy Drawed, the other kicked but he lost. The bullet went in his Thigh, into his Vitals.

Another timed heard of a Guy loaned his Muzzleloader out the year before. Next year he decided to clean up his Rifle before taking it out. Put a Cap on, pulled Trigger, shot his wife in the arm with 50 Cal. It had a load in it all year.

Yes things happen because people just don't think. But part of cleaning is looking down the Barrel.

big rockpile


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

big rockpile said:


> I had two friends that were Trained LEO's.
> 
> Another timed heard of a Guy loaned his Muzzleloader out the year before. Next year he decided to clean up his Rifle before taking it out. Put a Cap on, pulled Trigger, shot his wife in the arm with 50 Cal. It had a load in it all year.
> 
> big rockpile


Wow, that must have been brutal on her arm! 

And if he had loaded it again it would have possibly blown up the barrel. Muzzleloaders have their own extra hazards. Mine last year would not allow me to fully push the bullet down so I had to push it all out after removing most all the powder once the breech plug was removed. But I had a push rod with a tape indicator telling me how far the rod had to go in to be properly loaded.


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## bigjon (Oct 2, 2013)

natural selection:bash:


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## Malamute (Sep 15, 2011)

MichaelZ said:


> I recall one time when I "dry fired" a shotgun into the air after reloading just to make sure, only to find a shell stuck and was not unloaded.


Um, why didn't you look in the chamber, and feel with a finger instead of pulling the trigger to check? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes, people do some profoundly dumb things. Most problems are from ignoring the most basic safety precautions, such as never pointing a gun at anything you don't want to shoot a hole in (cleaning excepted, but still not pointing at anything or person) but I'm not inclined to believe that limiting age above 21, or making it a requirement to have training to exercise a right is the way to go.

Many places have little or no training requirements for a carry permit, or no permit required, which I think is proper as far as the Constitution is concerned. There hasn't been any huge difference in the number of people doing stupid things that I've heard of between the permit/training states and the no permit/little/no training states. Do I think anyone that carries or owns a gun should properly learn how to handle and use them? Yes. I absolutely can not get behind a legal _requirement_ for training. We talk about individual responsibility in many areas, but it seems to fall off the radar screens in this instance.


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## michigander (Mar 26, 2008)

Fire arms are always loaded, even when you think they' not,
never aim a fire arm at anything you don't intend to destroy,
always know whats on the other side of your target


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

Malamute said:


> Um, why didn't you look in the chamber, and feel with a finger instead of pulling the trigger to check? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense whatsoever.


It was a shotgun that is pump action. Unlike my rifle, you can not easily visually check. But I do count shells in and out. At any rate. Even after it is double-checked, tripled-checked, and quadruple checked, visually checked, and checked any other way, I still assume it is loaded. Always.

By dry-firing it is just another safety measure for this pump action. And even so, assumed loaded afterwards.


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## dizzy (Jun 25, 2013)

I haven't handled a gun a lot but there were 2 rules that I was taught early on:

1. NEVER point a gun at anyone unless you plan on shooting them

2. Always assume a gun is loaded


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

MichaelZ said:


> It was a shotgun that is pump action. Unlike my rifle, you can not easily visually check. But I do count shells in and out. At any rate. Even after it is double-checked, tripled-checked, and quadruple checked, visually checked, and checked any other way, I still assume it is loaded. Always.
> 
> By dry-firing it is just another safety measure for this pump action. And even so, assumed loaded afterwards.


Sorry to be the one to tell you, but someone taught you wrong. 

I'm assuming the first one was just an attempt at an excuse but, just in case you really didn't notice, your "shotguns" are the ones with the BIG hole down the pipe and have big, long ejection ports. So, you CAN visual clear a shotgun. I think the poster, though, asked why you didn't tactile clear it. Again, re: the big hole and ejection port. 

"Counting shells" is not a clearing operation. "Knowing" how many cartridges are in your weapon has nothing to do with gun safety. Even when you're clearing a single-shot, you don't rely on your ability to count to 1. You visual and/or tactile check it. 

The second one, I'm guessing was poor training. There has never been a gun design in which dry firing was "another safety measure". There is nothing wrong with dry firing most modern firearms, but you don't dry fire them to make them "safer". When you clear a weapon, you either cleared it or you didn't. Dry firing doesn't make it more clearer. 

When you see dropping the hammer or striker as part of a clearing procedure, it is written in because the weapon is being carried in closed quarters with other armed personnel. In that case, you clear the weapon, and then dry fire it into a clearing barrel or other safe direction to show the other armed individuals in the area that you cleared your weapon. If it goes off into the barrel, it is still a major career event. Showing the hammer down shows others that you did your job when it was your turn at the barrel. Since most pump shotguns, at least those built in the last 100 years, don't have an exposed hammer, dry firing it only serves one purpose- to give you one last opportunity to shoot it when you don't mean to. After all, if you meant to fire it, you wouldnt call it "dry firing" it, you would just say you were firing it.


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## Malamute (Sep 15, 2011)

MichaelZ said:


> *It was a shotgun that is pump action. Unlike my rifle, you can not easily visually check.* But I do count shells in and out. At any rate. Even after it is double-checked, tripled-checked, and quadruple checked, visually checked, and checked any other way, I still assume it is loaded. Always.
> 
> By dry-firing it is just another safety measure for this pump action. And even so, assumed loaded afterwards.


 What kind is it? I don't think I've seen a pump shotgun, or any other type that was too difficult to see the chamber, and most aren't too difficult to see the magazine and see if theres any rounds in it or see the follower. Some are fairly easy to let the rounds out of the magazine without running them through the chamber. The 870 Rem and Winchester model 12 are both pretty easy to unload that way.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

that might be the one down side in the Ithaca M37 design is the inability to easily check empty as it loads and ejects from the bottom but you can still do it 

but even in the dark you can stick your finger in there and be sure it is clear 


the one we have to stress real hard is the muzzle loaders , side locks the only way to know they are loaded is to have a proper length ram rod so that when empty it is flush with the end of the barrel , unfortunate this makes it a lousy cleaning rod so you also need a range rod
I have seen guys who forgot they left their muzzle loader loaded last season doesn't it seem like everyone thinks they will get out once more but they don't and the muzzle loader sits loaded for moths or a year then they go to pop some caps to load up , to have it go boom on the second cap 


but your last fail safe is always keep that muzzle in a safe direction , if you do that , you might be embarrassed but as long as every one walks away unhurt it is just a learning experience and a humbling one at that 

part of the reason you see chamber flags and clear barrel indicators is because it is that visual to everyone that you are really unloaded but it still doesn't mean you should treat it like anything other than a loaded gun.

If mandatory training worked people would be a lot better drivers 

Wisconsin requires that you have had a minimum of training for a CCL but we are also a unlicensed open carry state.

every accident i have ever witnessed involved some one dry firing a gun they though was unloaded and had cycled the action several times , thankfully the gun was always in a safe direction , and all we got was a lot of noise and in one case a damaged piano it still plays fine 30 years later just had a 22 cal hole in the leg after that. 


never ever point a gun at any one you do not intend to shoot for a justifiable reason, I can't even bring myself to demo what not to do i have to get out my finger pointed like a gun for that demo 

there was a guy who shot in his apartment accidentally with his deer rifle a few weeks ago here in Wisconsin , up was not a safe direction for him he shot his neighbor above him . if you live in a multi family dwelling or even have family in the house or live in range of other people you really need to just leave everything unloaded and action open till you get out to a range 

this becomes an interesting point with regard to carry guns , it should stay holstered all the time trigger covered , special care needs be taken when holstering or changing holsters and when chambering a round after cleaning if it is a semi auto , a person really should have some better safe direction if you can't do it into real ground or are on the ground floor with no one in the basement under you , a few sand bags in a box might be a good insurance if you lived in an apartment building say on a middle floor modern construction is just not enough to stop a bullet , if you say i always point at the refrigerator when cambering or clearing my gun , think again they will not stop a bullet.


*we all need to be very careful and teach this careful and deliberate caution in handling any gun to every one we can , because while people accept car accidents as a daily thing , they do not accept even a rare gun accident at all*


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## Malamute (Sep 15, 2011)

Well said, and some good points.

I had considered the Ithaca as regards how the chamber isn't as easy to see, but I agree, it can still be done, and see the magazine follower or a shell base visible.


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

Yes, it is an Ithaca.


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## JJ Grandits (Nov 10, 2002)

You mean the greatest pump gun ever made?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I think your pretty dumb if you haven't figured out you can stick a finger in the chamber of a pump shot gun to make sure it is empty, even a Ithaca 37 featherlite with the bottom eject.


 Al


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

alleyyooper said:


> I think your pretty dumb if you haven't figured out you can stick a finger in the chamber of a pump shot gun to make sure it is empty, even a Ithaca 37 featherlite with the bottom eject.


I think "dumb" is a little unecessarily harsh in this case. 

Yes, a 37 can be positively cleared by opening the action, flipping it over, and sighting, in one plane, both the magazine and the chamber - arguably easier than most pumps - or tactile checked in low light.

And, yes, the poster in question seemed to be taking three lefts around his rump to avoid actually properly clearing his weapon - "counting shells" is a brain stain waiting to happen, and dry firing as an "added safety measure" is almost as ridiculous. 

But, and this is key, he _thought_ he was handling his weapon correctly. He was clearing it according to his training, formal or informal as it may have been. Most of us learn our weapon handling from dad, uncle, or granddad. Some of us pay attention, get lucky, and get good habits. Some of us pay attention and, well, come away with his _bad_ habits. 

The take-away is that all of us, no mater how confident we are in our weapon handling, could always use a brush-up and perspective from other shooters. 

I work, daily, with people who carry weapons professionally. Fortunately, for my health, most of them have good training - training that many people could only dream of having the opportunity to take. And, even with that level of tribal knowledge, I still see some pretty weird things - maybe even give someone a "weird show", myself, sometimes. 

A perfect example, that is not too disimilar to the poster with the Ithaca:

An agency was holding a sniper cross-platform course. One segment was fam with 98-platform rifles, taught with an FNH. The instructor's POI included operation of the 3-position safety and threw in that, unlike rifles w/ 2-position safeties, the rifle should be unloaded with the safety on. 

One of the students was highly trained and served with a sniper rifle in two different roles; his rifle in both cases a 700-platform. At the end of each volley, he seemed to always be the one firing the last shot. Seemed odd, but no one worried too much about it, until one of the RSOs went and watched him. 

At the end of a volley, the shooter would put his safety 'on', drop his floorplate, put the rifle back on fire, and fire and eject the spent round. It turned out, he caught the part about only unloading with the safety on, but didn't fully grasp the 3-position safety- his experience wholly being with a 2-position. 

When he put the safety on, he brought it all the way back to position 3 and found that he couldn't open the bolt. So, after clearing his magazine, he was faced with the problem of clearing the chamber of a rifle who's bolt would not open. He didn't want to ask a "dumb" question in front of the class, so he laid down on the rifle and figured he'd sort it out.


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## Ohio Rusty (Jan 18, 2008)

He broke the first two major laws of gun safety ...... ALWAYS treat a gun like it's loaded ..... and ... NEVER point the gun at anything or anyone unless you intent to shoot.

I'm sad for the family. The gene pool is less one more idiot.
This guy rates right up there with the idiot that made the news today when he tried to kiss a snapping turtle on the lips, the the snapper about bit us upper lip off and sent him to the hospital for stitches. 
And these people vote ????
Ohio Rusty ><>


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## Harmless Drudge (Mar 9, 2010)

Ohio Rusty said:


> He broke the first two major laws of gun safety ...... ALWAYS treat a gun like it's loaded ..... and ... NEVER point the gun at anything or anyone unless you intent to shoot.
> 
> I'm sad for the family. The gene pool is less one more idiot.
> This guy rates right up there with the idiot that made the news today when he tried to kiss a snapping turtle on the lips, the the snapper about bit us upper lip off and sent him to the hospital for stitches.
> ...


Yes, and judging by the results of the last Presidential election, more than once. I wouldn't be surprised if the deceased casts his ballot this November as well. Twice.


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## king-01 (Jan 23, 2014)

I've lost count of how many times "professionals" have muzzle swept me with both full and semi auto weapons and had their finger on the trigger. I don't go to ranges anymore either.


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## tarbe (Apr 7, 2007)

I just dropped $363 to join a private shooting club in the Houston area.

I hated spending that kind of money, but the public range has too many non-safe gun handlers, and driving 500 miles round trip to my friend's ranch to shoot was getting old!

I wish I had a dollar for every time I told my son "Every gun is always loaded" and "Unloaded guns kill more people than loaded guns".

Always good to get a "free" reminder. Of course, this reminder wasn't free for everyone.


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## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

I belong to a private gun club, 800 members and a waiting list. Many of our members are veterans, some LEO's and yet our safety committee is considering cameras to try to stop unsafe behavior by a few idiots. When you see a man come out with his girl friend and have the two of them swinging muzzles on each other you want to throw up. Some skeet shooters are almost as bad. 

ALL GUNS ARE LOADED ALL THE TIME. 

I use the opportunity to teach gun safety when my grands play with their Airsoft rifles.


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