Triangle Tactical Podcast and Blog on Guns, Gear, and Competition Shooting
Right here in NC two (assumed) CCW permit holders shot themselves while fiddling with their blasters in parking lots.
On Sunday afternoon, a 42-year-old man in the parking lot of Academy Sports on U.S. Route 70 accidentally shot himself in the leg while changing the ammunition in his handgun.
The day before…
The day before, a 24-year-old man accidentally shot himself–also in the leg, and also while he was sitting in his vehicle–in the parking lot of Valley Hills Mall, which is adjacent to the Academy Sports parking lot.
The man was attempting to put his .45 caliber handgun on safety when it went off and hit an artery in his leg, causing life-threatening blood loss.
A bystander attempted to make a makeshift tourniquet with his belt. But it was an EMT, borrowing Hickory Police Officer Darren Bailey’s tourniquet, who stopped the blood flow.
Remember when all the long gun open carry stuff was going on at Starbucks and Chipotle a while back? I had this to say back then:
I have a problem with people thinking that it’s okay to do things in a public setting that wouldn’t be okay behind the firing line of a shooting range.
The same holds true here. If you don’t have a safe place to point your pistol while “changing ammo” or “putting it on safe”, you shouldn’t be doing it in that location.
Keep your gun in its holster while you’re away from your safe area.
On another note, the picture accompanying the Hickory Record story linked above has the following caption:
Hickory police officers now carry tourniquets, which can stop bleeding in life-threatening situations.
I like that. I’ll bet that the tourniquets will save a lot of lives as time goes on.
Both of these two idiots forgot one VERY IMPORTANT rule”: Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire.
Repeat after me, guns are not toys….
Apart from the carelessness of the gun owners, what strikes me is the way the news articles are written:
“The man was attempting to put his .45 caliber handgun on safety when it went off and hit an artery in his leg, causing life-threatening blood loss.”
Suppose the reporter had written this instead:
“The man was attempting to put his .45 caliber handgun on safety when he accidentally pulled the trigger and fired the gun into an artery in his leg, causing life-threatening blood loss.”
A small change, but it makes clear that the gun owner, not the gun, is to blame. The media consistently write about guns “going off,” and this is undoubtedly part of why so many people are afraid of them.
Heh, you identify something that The Truth About Guns loves to lampoon in their “Passively Constructed Accidental Discharge Story of the Day” series, but you make a very insightful point. The way these stories are phrased pervades public awareness of events like this.
Occam’s Razor says it’s not a conspiracy or something they teach in J-school, but just a perpetuation of what journos themselves know about guns.
Might have been a de-cocker malfunction. But, even then, do a weapons check. Empty the chamber first.
Sha Zam