Just read about the man who shot himself and his wife with a .45 ACP pistol this past week while attending a firearms training class -- accidental discharge -- the story does not really give any detail on how the incident happened.

Just curious about the experiences of others on this forum re being present when someone had an AD. The military/LEO
folks on this forum know how serious AD's are taken by thier
organizations.

I have fired many many thousands of rounds while handling a
wide variety of firearms - my own pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns at ranges, the farm, hunting in open field and in duck blinds (where an AD can be fatal and often is) -- plus
thousands of rounds on military ranges -- and on all of those countless days afield hunting or deployed, have never had an AD -- but I have witnessed a few.

One of my more memorable was as a young lieutenant spending the day as RSO (range safety officer) at Ft Polk -
it was additional duty but preferred to SDO (staff duty officer) -- range day was a single day, SDO was usually a weekend from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening (and stultifying as you sat at a desk answering a phone and waiting for emergencies that never occurred). This particular range day there were 12 M-113's on a .50 cal range -- late morning we take a break, I "safe" the range and announce orders to safe M2's (.50 cals) three times. I come down out of the range tower to hit the latrine and grab a cold drink -- I walk over to one of the M-113's (it is a mech infantry unit, part of 5th Infantry Division) and as I am talking to one of the troops, it happens -- the track I am standing next (M2 mounted in track commanders cupola) fires a burst of about 8-10 rounds -- I practically leap up onto the track in a single bound, realize the M2 has not been safed, I safe it and grab the E-4 and drag him out of the hatch and proceed to rip him a
new body feature -- I literally had him in tears as I threatened to court martial him. Thankfully, no one hurt (good thing is that M2 was still pointed down range) -- he had turned in the hatch opening and hit the butterfly trigger with his elbow.
Did not see any AD's in Iraq by active military -- we had hundreds of troops daily in the MNFI (Multi-National Forces Iraq) dining hall at the Republican Palace which was in one of the palace banquet halls -- it seated at least 600 people and as it was a joint service unit, lots of different weapons were carried -- (it is interesting to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with about 600 armed men and women -- we often joked that an armed society was a polite society) -- I remember two female Air Force officers, a major and an LTC, who carried Sterling submachineguns (the first ones I had ever encountered) -- they carried them slung over thier shoulders like they were Gucci purses) -- in all of those days (bear in m ind that most of us left the Green Zone everyday to travel around Baghdad or elsewhere in Iraq, locked/loaded and upon return to the GZ, had to clear and safe weapons) I never witnessed an AD by active military. I did witness a couple of AD's by Iraqis (twice by Iraqi police carrying AK's --both incidents inside Iraqi government buildings) -- no one hurt.
The one I really remember was by a South African PSD guy working for DynCorps -- we were at LZ Washington waiting for a Blackhawk to pick us up -- the PSD guy was about 30 meters from us around the other side of the flight ops building -- he was with some other PSD's and some civilians they were escorting. I hear a couple of AK rounds crack and we race around the ops building thinking bad guys are targeting us -- the PSD guy put two rounds thru his lower leg via AD and was bleeding severely -- one of my guys who had been thru the combat lifesavers course saved his life (helped by one of the new instant clotting bandages we had been issued) -- I will never forget the look on the PSD's face as the color drained out of his face -- most of the DYNCorps and Aegis PSD's were from Great Britain, South Africa, Zimbabwe and were all former military and usually well trained. Anyway, I made a lengthy entry in my journal that evening about the importance of weapon safety and that incident -- I am ever so careful about teaching my two young sons how important safety is.

auto loaders don't clear with the mag in-I know. Flapjack.

Sir: Was a brand new CPL Infantry squad leader in Korea in the middle post war days. Had a few Katusas assigned; most were pretty squared away but had one clown that was always high maintenance. One day took a 6 man detail + the clown on a recon in the vicinity of Z; standard SOP was full mag on empty chambered and closed bolt; safety was paramount on patrol and it only took a second to lock and load. Clown L&L'ed sometime after SP and yes you guess it; stumbled and AD. As the man in charged I figured my new stripes were the out the door. However the senior Katusa told the ROK SGM what had happened. SGM was NOT amused and my squad and I experienced first hand some old time discipline; wake up call for everyone. BLUF: I definitively experienced some "professional growth"; the "clown" turned into one of the best TLs I ever had and together we developed into what was arguably the most squared away Squad in the BN. Lesson learned...

r/ Will

For fun, back at Ft. Bliss in the early '60's we'd watch the Korean detachment hold Saturday inspections... when a gig was noted, the inspecting officer just belted him one in the chops.. I swear they rocked on their heels just like those clown punching dummies you used to see for kids.

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Old paratrooper in NC

"The one I really remember was by a South African PSD guy working for DynCorps -- we were at LZ Washington waiting for a Blackhawk to pick us up -- the PSD guy was about 30 meters from us around the other side of the flight ops building -- he was with some other PSD's and some civilians they were escorting. I hear a couple of AK rounds crack and we race around the ops building thinking bad guys are targeting us -- the PSD guy put two rounds thru his lower leg via AD and was bleeding severely -- one of my guys who had been thru the combat lifesavers course saved his life (helped by one of the new instant clotting bandages we had been issued) -- I will never forget the look on the PSD's face as the color drained out of his face -- most of the DYNCorps and Aegis PSD's were from Great Britain, South Africa, Zimbabwe and were all former military and usually well trained. Anyway, I made a lengthy entry in my journal that evening about the importance of weapon safety and that incident -- I am ever so careful about teaching my two young sons how important safety is."

In Afghanistan, many of the DynCorps security people were Romanian and South Africians. There was one Romanian would was very prone to swing the muzzle of his weapons in everyones direction.

I was walking to my office when I passed one of the South Africans. He was toting a Beretta M9. I glanced at his weapon and he was carrying it with the hammer back!!!!!!!!! I CAREFULLY stopped him and lowered the hammer on his pistol.

Most of the police officers I worked with in the sandbox were much safer than the security folks. Of course, we carried loaded guns every day. Most military only carry loaded when on active ops.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

For a person fully qualified on a weapon is it an "accidental discharge" or a ND "negligent discharge"???

Edmo

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TRUTH: Don't delete my posts!

Fingers should be miles away from the trigger until ready to fire!

Actually, I thought this was another "I am a pervert" type post and this...

It's been close to fifty years since I had my mitts on a M-2 but if I remember correctly it wasn't "safe" until the belt was removed and the bolt cycled at least twice.

Over the last 20 years, "accidental discharge" has come to mean a weapon firing through mechanical defect. At least that's the formal definition.

Negligent or unintentional discharge are used to describe user error situations. UD being less harsh than "Negligent" and less likely to adversely impact the self esteem of the bleeping idiot responsible.

The terminology changes were largely driven by liability insurance carriers. However, it does serve a useful function in allowing proper identifcation of the root cause of the event.

Great post -- Like you, I always made a special effort to help tooops become good squared away troops and am proud to say the vast majority of them took the cues and did well.

You and WR Moore make a good point -- the term "accidental discharge" is still used by the Army generically to describe incidents of weapons firing when there is no intent for the weapon to fire or cycle. During my tenure, I did see one mechanical failure (M-9 on a pistol range) -- and most AD's were due to negligence or unintentional (which almost always was due to negligence) -- when drawing up a charge sheet for an Art. 15 or summary court-martial (the only time an AD would proceed to a special court-martial (SCM) or general court-martial (GCM) would be if there was injury or death or significant property damage and during my time , I never had experience with such an event) the term AD would be used along with langauge to describe how the event occurred and why (negligence, inadvertence, etc).

I remember reading that article, it was amazing the guy was cleaning the gun in a gun class and screws up that badly and not only blasts a hole in his hand but hit's his wife too.
Some folks probably shouldn't have guns, and maybe the instructor needs to review his or her class to see where a failure occurred if any that allowed this to happen.
It might come down to changing the method or timing of something in the class, or re-verifying everyone's weapon is unloaded. Of course we don't have the whole story and what exactly happened might never make it to the media. Clearly at least one screw-up happened, but it might have been one following a previous one on the instructor's end of things.

Why I very seldom teach a class any longer. I enjoyed being an instructor, being an IPSC RO, but too many opportunities for a "ND". I did have one myself many years ago at the beginning of a PPC match, loading up my Gold Cup had a misfeed that I got too impatient to clear properly. Yes, it was an "ND".

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I recently was at an unit in northwest Afghanistan. They had two months to go but the CPT was getting relocated to Kandahar. I am not afraid to ask direct questions, I asked the NCOIC what he had did to get sent away. The answer was "He is going to replace the FORMER Company Commander who had a negilgent discharge of his firearm inside the BDE TOC" So actually it was a promotion. The former CO was sent out to some other duty, career over.

To me there are no accidental discharges. They are negligent discharges. I have never seen a gun go off all by itself when its left alone, usually when some idiot who should know better gets ahold of it.

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Vaya con Dios

If its your firearm,and you do it, its negligence-give it to someoe and they do it-its negligence-Safety wise its zero tolerance for pulling the trigger when it shouldn't be pulled.
Fully qualified is having enough sense to tell someone to stop unsafe handling.

Accidental discharge is when I've had too many tacos.

Watched a guy at local public range pick up a Ruger bolt gun, 30-06, and BOOM! he sent a round due west into the Everglades. RSO ran over yelling and I packed up and skeedaddled. Hope no one was out airboating. This gun came out of the case loaded, no excuse for all that stupidity.

Wouldn't that be more of an "IN-COMING" or "FIRE IN THE HOLE" ???

Actually, more like "Rounds out" or "Fire for effect".

My buddy is telling me a story about his brother (former LEO) who was cleaning his service revolver and "It just went off". Without missing a beat my 12yr old son notes "good to hear he left the PD and became a lawyer, we are all safer... revolvers don't just go off"

It begs the question if a 12 year old can figure it out why not a twenty something who completed the police academy?

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always trust your cape...

I went to the gun show last weekend and there was an accidental discharge. After going through the main gate and being asked by a policeman if we have any firearms. Then asked to stand there and clear them, and keep ammo away from weapon. All guns are to have the action ziptied, even vendor's carry weapons. Somehow, a vendor pulled out his pistol to hand to a customer, who discharged a round into the roof. Luckily no harm. I thought to myself how can this happen with so much emphasis on safety?

My wife would be inclined to agree with you. My co-workers would attribute the problem to my senility.

That's exactly what I was taught some 15 years ago when I started getting into shooting. I couldn't agree more.

Was that the WAC show in Puyallup? I heard a rumor that there was a ND there on Sunday. A vendor? Not good!

Yes it was, and it was a vendor. I wonder if the fairgrounds will ever let the WAC have another show there.

There was an ugly one in a local town this weekend. Seems a young woman called 911 because her boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) was busting up the place and threatening her and her two little kids. As the local PD was getting ready to hit the door, one of them had a ND which penetrated the building and struck her in the jaw. She's going to need extensive surgical reconstruction.
The DA and the PD aren't saying much. The department issues S&W M&P's, but no official word if it was one of those or another gun. The town expects a big lawsuit.

I have a story...when i was 16 i got a keltec su16. i usually kept it loaded under my bed. one day i decided to clean it so i took it down stairs and sat at the table. i released the mag then pulled the bolt back to eject the shell. i didnt see anything come out but i didnt look very well. i didnt have the bolt pulled back to the lock position and i let go of it. it slammed shut and then BOOM it discharged. it went thru a wooden 2x4 shelf, a wall, then ended up in a dresser shelf. it scared me to death. Even to this day i still dont know what happened. i dont know if i had my finger on the trigger and when i dropped the bolt i pulled the trigger or what. It really took my safety sense to a whole new level. I never had another accident after that and i always check 3 times before anything goes near the trigger