I had an accidental discharge once while shooting trap with the family in the back yard. I was using a gun that I was unfamiliar with and I'm still not sure how I hit the trigger. But I had been ingrained since the day I started shooting to keep the muzzle pointed safely and did nothing more than fire into the air.

A guy I hunt with was checking the safety on his gun, unfortunately the safety wasn't enganged and the gun was loaded. Luckily, he was following rule #2. His embarrasment over his accident forced him to put his gun up for the day and stay in the cabin. Of course, when you hunt with 7 guys, you'll never hear the end of it.

I think an underlying problem with most accidental discharges is a lack of familiarity with the gun being used. The guy I mentioned above, picks up his rifle once a year for deer season. Most guys I see doing stupid things at the range usually have just bought the gun and didn't take the time to figure out how to use it proerly. I spend more time watching the people around me than I do shooting.

Dan

I say everytime a gun gets pointed in an unsafe direction it's an accident and I give anybody who does it the same amount of heck I'd give them if they had shot it in that direction. When a muzzle gets pointed within 20 degrees of me I go balistic and they put the gun down at least for a bit.

I had an accidental discharge back in 1975or76. My little brother had bought an old Enfield rifle that ended up with me. I took it out to the Arkansas River south of Tulsa to shoot it. This friend, named Mike (last name withheld to protect the guilty) wanted to shoot it, so I let him. The gun was lying on the ground on some blankets and sandbags for some prone shooting. He shot once or twice decided it was too stout for him and got up. I was checking on some other stuff and didn't notice that he chambered a round and left the rifle off safety and hot. I didn't really look at it because he sain he had been the Air Force equivalent of an MP,SP or somethng like that, so I assumed (you know what ASSUME spells) that he knew what he was doing.
I got down on the ground, not having touched the gun, trying to get in a good prone position so I could get the gun sighted in for deer season. I touched the gun to my cheek still trying to find my fixed points of contact, with my right thumb in front of my nose. I have not touched the trigger. I turned my head to the right to check position, when I must have touched the trigger. The gun was not as yet as firmly seated against my shoulder as it needed to be. My first point of contact with the weapon was my thumb moving my nose to the right about an inch.
I would say it hurt and there was a lot of blood, (even from a somewhat cynical Army medic's point of view) but that would be like saying Heidi Klum cleans up right nice and looks ok in a bikini. That ended shooting for the day.
I went to my car looked in the mirror and straightened my nose there, I knew if the swelling continued the doc would want me to come back in a day or two and try to straighten it when the swelling was down, I wasn't interested in going through that twice.
I never shot that gun again, every time I picked it up my eyes would fill with tears just in anticipation, talk about a Pavlovian Response. I ended up selling it later. Oh, and I didn't ever go shooting with Mike again.
A lot of my friends think I am too picky when it comes to handling guns and certain practices even when the gun is not "loaded" I admit that I don't bend much on those rules, because my nose already has.

Clay Cooper,

I have been handling firearms (shooting) since i was 9 years old. (am now 38) and have YET to bring home a loaded firearm, from the range or otherwise. Discounting of course the black powder guns, or of course my carry gun. (no prime in pan or cap on the nipple the gun is considered unloaded)

Personally i have had 1 A/D. When i was in my first year of juniors small bore competion, I sighted in on my sighter ring for my first of 4 sighter shots and squeezed the trigger...NOTHING...i reached up to open the bolt...as soon as i started to open it, BANG. Dont know for sure where that bullet went. I know it was downrange and i guess THATS all that matters. LESSON LEARNED!!!!

I will NOT put up with stupidity with firearms...as with the unnamed poster above i GO OFF when i see barrels pointed inmy direction. (Unloaded or otherwise) I have even escorted 2 folk from the state run ranges (1 at gun point) for stupidity. 1 was a true A/D into the roof of the "shooters shack". (he was new to his gun and had no real clue what he was doing to begin with) The other time was when we called a cease fire to change targets at the 50 yard range...my buds were down range changing out targets when IDIOT in booth next to ours finishes packing his M/L and sits to the bench and begins to take aim...WITH my friends DOWNRANGE. I Franticly started SCREAMING at the idiot...after the barrel was pointed in a safe direction, i told him to "git his $hit and GIT"...when he started to spit, stutter and refuse.... he found himself on the WRONG end of a 1911. Didnt take long for my buds to get back uprange when they heard me going off... when the gist of the altercation became apparent to them...they likewise took exception to Mr. Idiot and helped with the "forceful" expulsion.

There is NO PLACE for sloppy handling of firearms...there is NO excuse for idiocy on the range or in the field. PERIOD!

Heres my story of an accidental discharge that happened to me.
I was at the range on a cold day and was wearing a heavy Levi type coat. My rifle was on the sandbags pointed down range as always. For some reason I hadn't buttoned the sleeve on my right hand and after I ejected a spent case and chambered a fresh round I brought my hand back and the large metal buttons they put on those coats snagged on the trigger and off she went.
PS. I hit the target too!

Mike,

You're an dumb, big-mouth ass....

In trying to be safe you did an extremely unsafe act with loss of self control. You're lucky there wasn't a shoot-out...thinking of some of the no nonsense folks I know that would have witness your antics.

Let us all know which gun range you haunt.

No Name Poster:

A black powder arm is not unloaded until it is DISCHARGED! PERIOD!

Bubba

I was talking to a bunch of Black Powder guys at the range last week, when the topic of accidental discharges/deaths at the range came up. One guy did shoot himself in the head by looking down the barrel of his rifle (musket?). They said it took 6 months for him to die.

Another guy had a failure to fire (or whatever the equivalent is in black powder; in any case his rifle was loaded) the month before and took the rifle home "to clean it later." Except he forgot and brought the same rifle to the next meeting. He said he's going to clear it, put a cap on the nipple, aimed it at the ground, and a bullet went off, hit a rock, ricocheted back over their heads and just missing a guy who was standing behind them by a couple of inches. I don't think he's shooting with the group anymore.

A couple local situations that have happenend in the last few years in my area...

A couple goose hunters were walking back from the water through corn stuble. The one in back tripped, his shot gun going off into the back of the leg of the hunter in front. They called 911 from a cell phone, but the injured hunter bled to death before help arrived.

In a local indoor range, a man was teaching his wife to shoot. He was fairly tall and wide through the shoulders, she was shorter and thin. He gave her a larger caliber semi-auto for her first pistol to shoot. As he stood behind her, she took her first shot without locking her elbows, the recoil of the pistol caused it to rise past her shoulder just as she grabbed the trigger again as the muzzle moved under his chin, killing him instantly.

I too am very obsessed about where guns are being pointed. I won't invite someone to go shooting with me who has not done well before with muzzle direction control. Responsible handling, being deliberate about your actions, and paying attention will prevent ALL gun accidents.

Can't say I've ever had an AD but that's certainly no reason for hubris. If anything, I think the longer anyone goes without an accident the more imperative it is to stay on your guard, follow the rules and not let familiarity breed folly. I think Dick Cheney's accident is a good example of that, although I know Dave is not so charitable. Still, Cheney is an experienced big game and bird hunter who as near as I can tell from talking to people who know him is about as careful as you can get and had never had any kind of accident before in his life. I do think the shootee contributed by approaching the shooters from the side without announcing himself, and sometimes your blood gets up with the covey rise, but as Cheney himself said there was still no excuse. Dave's right about number 2 being the most important rule. Follow that one and no matter what else happens no one gets hurt or killed. I did an outdoor column to that basic effect after Cheney's accident. In my own case, my dad gave me a copy of the NRA's 10 safety rules when I was six and would not let me have a cork gun -- yep, a cork gun -- until I memorized them (he cut me some slack on the alcohol & gunpowder). He also went one step further and insisted that anytime a gun changes hands the person receiving it should always make a show of checking to be sure it's unloaded, even if you just witnessed three other people do it before you took possession. I made my son do the same things, which is one reason he is now and has been for some time my most trusted hunting partner. I have also gone off on people who let a muzzle wander across my body and I never hunt with them again. It's only happened a couple of times but one could have been enough, and I have no desire to give anyone a second crack at it.

To the poster who pointed a firearm at the person being ejected off the range:

Boy, you got more balls than brains. I never pointed a weapon at a target that I did not intend to shoot. I know lots of folks who would pop a cap in your a$$ if you point a gun at them. So consider yourself lucky that the guy didn't walk back in and shoot you.

My only accidental discharge cost me a buck.

I had a beautiful 11-pointer at 65 yards and a muzzleloader with a really light trigger. It was cold and I was wearing those gloves with the mittens that fold back.

I thumbed the hammer back and was raising the gun to my cheek when one of those mitts must have brushed the trigger. I shot down through the woods over the buck's head.

He and the 8-point traveling with him just looked in my direction for a nice long time before sauntering off through the woods, up the hill where my buddy missed because he hadn't checked the scope on his shotgun before deer season.

I sold the little T/C and do all my blackpowder hunting with a Remington 700 .50 caliber now.