Firearm safety

[S&WsRsweet]

I live up on a hill about 15 feet above the road that goes in fro t if my home and my house is about 100 yards off the road.Friday night about 9 pm an automobile came by my house and some idiot opened fire into the bank with a semiauto handgun and fired about 8 rounds into the dirt bank.I heard something hit my house and sure enough the next morning there was a hole up in the top of my outside trim .I called the police and explained the situation and the officer and myself picked up 6 9mm shell casings .He told me they would send them to the crime lab but not to get too hopefull as getting useable prints off them was iffy at best but he would get them processed.Folks please if you are out there please please don't play with firearms .They are not toys .I know I am preaching to the choir here but I just had to rant .

 

[6518John]

I am surprised we don't hear of more of this sort of thing with the popularity of the AR type rifles these day—I can't imagine how far a .223 round can travel.

My dad drilled into my head that my first single shot .22 would "shoot a mile" plus that was on every box of shells. I believed that a .22 was some sort of a death ray and would kill an elephant at a mile, so I was obsessed with Col. Cooper's fourth rule. For me at least, product warnings/labeling worked.

 

[wingriderz]

Wow glad your ok.

 

[S&WsRsweet]

Thanks guys yes I am glad it wasn't tragic also.I am very very glad it wasn't a rifle round .I am very paranoid about when and where I shoot .I consider myself a safe and responsible gun owner .I am considering posting a sign in my yard offering a reward for information on the person or persons involved .I don't think it was an intentional firing at my house but a stupid idiot who shouldn't be near much less own a gun. I must admit this who Thing has truly made me start taking a second look at my support of our rights to own any firearm more and more I am having to realize that society has changed .I was allowed even encouraged by my dad to walk the woods and fields around our place in persuit of game .After he determined I was mature enough and understood what it meant to place every shot where I wanted it to go and never shoot unless I was 100 percent sure of my target and the back stop if I missed .Society in America has changed and it is a sad day when a fellow would shoot at night without any regard to an innocent person possibly being killed .

 

[BigBoy99]

Our house is completely surrounded by forest and its been a while, many 20 years now but I looked at the ceiling in our bedroom and thought I had a discovered a new "nail pop" in the drywall. I usually pull out the nail and replace it with a drywall screw and patch it over. When I tried to get the nail out, it wasn't a nail at all but a 12 ga. shotgun slug! I went into the attic and discovered the slug had come through the siding and traveled through three roof rafters. A steel truss plate had deflected the slug down into the drywall. Sure enough when I went outside and looked there was a nice 0.75" diameter hole in the siding. Lucky we were not at home when it happened.

 

[fordson]

Glad there were no injuries and no serious property damage.
This is blatant irresponsible use of a firearm. It's incidents like this that make me think that some basic firearms training is necessary before one can buy a firearm. Let's start in HS.

 

[tops]

I had a guest at my house that was shooting an AR and when he loaded the chamber he had the gun pointed in the air. I told him to point the gun at the ground when he loaded the chamber because the gun might slam fire and if the gun is pointed in the air there is no telling where the bullet will go. He looked at me like I was stupid and the next time he loaded the chamber the gun was pointed in the air. I don't know where he shoots now but it is not at my house.
A few years ago I found a place in my roof when a bullet had hit. From where my house is located the bullet had to come from a long way off. Larry

 

[Muss Muggins]

Hopefully this is also an object lesson to those with homemade berms for homemade shooting ranges. The rounds don't always stay in the berm . . .

I live up on a hill about 15 feet above the road that goes in fro t if my home and my house is about 100 yards off the road. Friday night about 9 pm an automobile came by my house and some idiot opened fire into the bank with a semiauto handgun and fired about 8 rounds into the dirt bank. I heard something hit my house

 

[dockmurgw]

Hopefully this is also an object lesson to those with homemade berms for homemade shooting ranges. The rounds don't always stay in the berm . . .

Some of us have two choices...home made berms or don't shoot...period, and home made berms are not a problem. Shooting in a home made berm is no more or less dangerous than shooting at a public range, this forum is full of horror stories about accidents and close calls at public ranges. If a berm is properly constructed, a round shot in a berm WILL stay in the berm, cant escape the laws of physics. The safety of home made berms and public ranges are both equally dependent on common sense and thinking at least one step beyond what your doing. I'll take my home made berm over any public facility any day of the week. We have had a couple of incidents where people were shot in their yards by people target shooting somewhere else. In one instance the woman survived, but the shooter was never identified. In the other the person died, and the investigation found the shooter was target shooting at just targets plopped on the ground with no berm. People who go through the time and expense of building berms don't need object lessons, we already know the hazards of irresponsible actions, that's why we built berms. It's the knuckleheads described by the OP that are the problem, put them in a public range and the outcome would be the same.