Driver handling gun shoots himself

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If they taught gun safety in the schools, maybe this wouldn't happen.

Dang, what am I saying? If the schools taught gun safety, they'd botch it andthere'd be lots more of these accidents.

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Hahahaha!

Sadly, the topic of this thread shows us how Hospitals keep Darwin out of the picture.... If only..... Oh, how cruel of me.

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longwatch wrote:

In a way I agree with you, incidents like this one are unintended consequences of gun laws. I recently met a man who had unintentionally shot himself doing very nearly the same thing as the man in the story, and he was doing it to comply with the law as well. He was lucky and wasn't as severely wounded as this man.

Maybe the lesson we should take away is that if we should ever find ourselves in a situation where handling a gun is neccessary to ... stop, relax and concentrate solely on handling the firearm safely.

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That lesson isnot optional and should be learned before carrying. It is the barest minimum requirement for handling any firearm and would apply with or without any kind of regulatory/carry laws. The person in question who shot himself violated 3 of the 4 rules of firearm safety and he is utterly irresponsible for having done so.

The applicable laws regarding legal carry are irrelevant to this shooter/shootee's error. A man can either handle a gun safely or he can not. How anyone cansee some ameliorating circumstances due to antis or carry regulations is beyond me.

The fool shot his fool self by intentionially pulling the trigger on a loaded gun while it was pointed at his thigh.

It doesn't get any stupider than that. Then, he lost control of his vehicle, sideswiped another car and crashed into a 7-Eleven sign, which was the only thing to stop his car. Not a very pretty representation of gun carriers everywhere...

This goof with a gun is now up on charges:



Shot driver accused of reckless conduct

Monitor staff

March 28. 2007


AWebster man who accidentally shot himself in January as he dismantled his gun while driving down Loudon Road has been indicted on reckless conduct charges.

Robert Drown, 22, of Battle Street, was hospitalized but is now recovering from his injuries. After he shot himself in the thigh, Drown lost control of his vehicle, hit a minivan and toppled the sign at the 7-Eleven on Loudon Road, witnesses told the police.

An indictment is a formal charge that allows the case to be scheduled for trial. Drown told the police that he was trying to put his .40-caliber Glock handgun in the safety mode while driving when it fired.

Drown could face 3½ to 7 years in prison if convicted and given the maximum sentence. As a convicted felon, he'd also be prohibited from possessing firearms.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070328/REPOSITORY/703280324

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There will always be idiots, morons, and fools. Some of them will carry guns, sadly, but -- Some of them will be college professors, some will be EPA administrators, some will be little league coaches, some will be lawyers, some will be astronauts, some will be the mail man.

Some will be president, some will be supreme court justices, some will fly commercial airliners, some will make movies with a $200 million budget. Some will be Wal-mart checkout clerks, some will be carpenters, some will be baseball superstars.

So tell that to the Brady Bunch when they try to take your gun just because some idiot mishandled his gun.

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Now I'm torn about this, should this man face felony charges and lose his gun rights for this incident? Now he could have killed someone, but this was after all an accident, and he suffered plenty of consequences from it IMHO.

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Drown told the police that he was trying to put his .40-caliber Glock handgun in the safety mode while driving when it fired.

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WTH is he talking about?

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nakedshoplifter wrote:

Drown told the police that he was trying to put his .40-caliber Glock handgun in the safety mode while driving when it fired.

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WTH is he talking about?

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The story alsosaid:

The victim "told them he was dismantling his gun while driving and didn't know it was loaded,"



I 'm thinking that he was intending to remove the slide from the frame. On a Glock, that requires pulling the trigger first. Everyone warns to make sure the gun doesn't have one in the pipe before pulling the trigger...but sometimes people forget. Or are distracted when they disassemble the firearm.

Nothing safer than a Glock with the slide and frame separated, I say.

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longwatch wrote:

Now I'm torn about this, should this man face felony charges and lose his gun rights for this incident? Now he could have killed someone, but this was after all an accident, and he suffered plenty of consequences from it IMHO.

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My view on this kind of thing is that he should face criminal action if he accidentallykills someone, and not because he might have.

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LeagueOf1291 wrote:

longwatch wrote:

Now I'm torn about this, should this man face felony charges and lose his gun rights for this incident? Now he could have killed someone, but this was after all an accident, and he suffered plenty of consequences from it IMHO.

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My view on this kind of thing is that he should face criminal action if he accidentallykills someone, and not because he might have.

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On the other hand the Commonwealth Attorney here in Fairfax stated that a cop who accidently shot and killed an optometrist (see Sal Culosi http://www.justiceforsal.com/), committed no crime. Dick Cheney accidently shot his friend in the face and chest and has faced no charges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Hunting_incident

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I don't understand WHY he would want to take the slide off his gun while driving an automobile, just sounds idiotic. (It requires TWO hands!) Glocks are safe as hell as long as the safety between your ears is functioning properly (read: his brain). Unfortunatly, his safety was not operational that day.

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nakedshoplifter wrote:

I don't understand WHY he would want to take the slide off his gun while driving an automobile, just sounds idiotic. (It requires TWO hands!) Glocks are safe as hell as long as the safety between your ears is functioning properly (read: his brain). Unfortunatly, his safety was not operational that day.

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+1

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longwatch wrote:

LeagueOf1291 wrote:

longwatch wrote: My view on this kind of thing is that he should face criminal action if he accidentallykills someone, and not because he might have.

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On the other hand the Commonwealth Attorney here in Fairfax stated that a cop who accidently shot and killed an optometrist (see Sal Culosi http://www.justiceforsal.com/), committed no crime. Dick Cheney accidently shot his friend in the face and chest and has faced no charges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Hunting_incident

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Well, my point was to negate the risk of criminal action for possibly hurting someone by accident. I'm cautious about undertaking criminal action even if you actually harm someone by accident. Certainly if you accidentally hurt someone, you are responsible for restitution -- if you do that voluntarily, there might not be any need for criminal action.

IMy focus is on individual responsibility and accountability to other citizens.

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nakedshoplifter wrote:

Drown told the police that he was trying to put his .40-caliber Glock handgun in the safety mode while driving when it fired.

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WTH is he talking about?

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More like WTF... My wife is a reporter (with a CHP, which is a rarity) and most reporters can't tell the difference between a Glock,M16or Bazooka <seriously> -- It was probably a "lost in translation" issue.

Hasn't Mr. Drown been punished ENOUGH..

1) He's been recognized as the village idiot for shooting himself accidentally
2) That HAD TO HURT
3) The other drivers and the Southland corporation(7-11) took his money to replace the property damaged

Why does this guy need to be charged with a felony?

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psmartin wrote:

<snip>
Hasn't Mr. Drown been punished ENOUGH..

1) He's been recognized as the village idiot for shooting himself accidentally
2) That HAD TO HURT
3) The other drivers and the Southland corporation(7-11) took his money to replace the property damaged

Why does this guy need to be charged with a felony?

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+1

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"The applicable laws regarding legal carry are irrelevant to this shooter/shootee's error. A man can either handle a gun safely or he can not. How anyone cansee some ameliorating circumstances due to antis or carry regulations is beyond me."

If you end up with your gun stolen out of your car, because you safely parked and then stashed the gun under your seat, while a criminal was watching, you might not be quite so dogmatic about it.

Of course carry regulations are relevant. They can make normal gun safety more risky, in this case, risk of losing a gun (with all attendant ills that can come from that, up to having it used in a murder). Gun owners now have to add such factors in their calculations, of how they should act. True gun safety would involve leaving the gun in the holster and not fumbling with it outside of places like a range or one's home. Firearms laws likely made this person have to fool with his gun in the first place, even if he chose an unwise way to do it.

It's not a matter of trying to make excuses for this guy, but of recognizing the contribution of government to the overall problem. "The law is an ass, an idiot," as Charles Dickens put it.

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PaulB wrote:

HankT wrote:

The applicable laws regarding legal carry are irrelevant to this shooter/shootee's error. A man can either handle a gun safely or he can not. How anyone cansee some ameliorating circumstances due to antis or carry regulations is beyond me.

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Of course carry regulations are relevant. They can make normal gun safety more risky, in this case, risk of losing a gun (with all attendant ills that can come from that, up to having it used in a murder). Gun owners now have to add such factors in their calculations, of how they should act. True gun safety would involve leaving the gun in the holster and not fumbling with it outside of places like a range or one's home. Firearms laws likely made this person have to fool with his gun in the first place, even if he chose an unwise way to do it.

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"Likely?"

No. I don't think that any NH laws "likely made this person have to fool with his gun in the first place."

What makes you think that? There does not seem to be any substantiation for such an assumption. In fact, NH is a very permissive state for both OC and CC. Drown could easily have just carried the Glock into his destination.

Why would a legallyarmed man not want to be armed while being in a public place when there is no legal bar to doing so?



PaulB wrote:

It's not a matter of trying to make excuses for this guy, but of recognizing the contribution of government to the overall problem. "The law is an ass, an idiot," as Charles Dickens put it.

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Where is the "contribution of government" here? I don't see it. I just see a goof with a gun. Driving while field stripping a loaded Glock...pulling a Glock trigger with a round in the pipe...it doesn't get much more irresponsible than that. There's nothing in this thread or in the two articles that demonstrates any problem with the law.

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HankT wrote:

Where is the "contribution of government" here? I don't see it. I just see a goof with a gun. Driving while field stripping a loaded Glock...pulling a Glock trigger with a round in the pipe...it doesn't get much more irresponsible than that. There's nothing in this thread or in the two articles that demonstrates any problem with the law.

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Right. Even if the law required him to field strip his gun before getting out of his car, no amount of stupity or uselessness in the law "caused" him to shoot himself or "contributed" to his shooting himself. His own stupidity was the proximate cause of his accident.

If the law did require me to do something stupid and dangerous with my gun, I'd be sorely tempted not to comply, wouldn't you? For sure, if I was on a jury, I'd be sorely tempted to acquit the guy who refused to comply.

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No law requires you to fiddle with a gun while driving a vehicle.

If I can't talk on a cellphone while driving (in some states) I certainly can't (shouldn't) unload a gun while driving! It falls under the same "driving while distracted" principle.

If you gotta unload or field strip do it when you are stopped! And I don't wanna hear that tired excuse "I might be seen". I could completely dissassemble a glock (to the smallest component) in the front seat of my car w/o anyone having any idea what I was doing. I'd probably lose at least one of the parts on the floor though. :lol:

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HankT wrote:

Why would a legallyarmed man not want to be armed while being in a public place when there is no legal bar to doing so?

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Why? Because he was raised in a country in which every TV show and movie and news outlet depicts guns as dangerous things that only policemen are fit to posess, and anyone elese who does so is likely a criminal or a hick of some sort. That's an easy question, Hank.

Anyone who ever grew up in an anti-gun environment like New York City and moved to Virginia or New Hampshire can tell you that when they started carrying they felt like they were doing something they had been trained not to do their entire life, even though they know it's legal.

Until society becomes more accepting of firearms being carried openly and concealed for self defense, people new to the world of carrying will always feel edgy when first carrying, no matter how well trained or knowledgable they are, and edgy people tend to make dumber mistakes.

No one hereis saying this is an excuse for what this guy did, but you keep saying we are, as though you are looking for an argument where there is none.

What we are arguing in favor of is fighting against society's anti-gun taboo, which is really at the heart of preserving the right to keep and bear arms. Once the taboo has been lifted, fixing the bad laws becomes much easier, and the likliehood of such accidents may be decreased as well.

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Anyone who ever grew up in an anti-gun environment like New York City and moved to Virginia or New Hampshire can tell you that when they started carrying they felt like they were doing something they had been trained not to do their entire life, even though they know it's legal.

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Very true. The first time I OC'd was at a VCDL meeting. I waited till I saw someone else OC into the building and I walked in with them. I was sweating!

Orig from Kansas.