Unintended Discharge, no finger on trigger

[leadcounsel]

There was not anything obviously NEGLIGENT about this, and it appears to me the officer should be commended for following gun safety.

It appears he may have flicked on or off the safety. So my only criticisms would be if he turned the safety to fire unnecessarily. The trigger either snagged his gear, or the weapon malfunctioned. And he didn't stop to see if anyone was injured and just ignored it and kept running...

Either way, he did a good job of keeping the gun pointed in a safe direction. If he had been flagging others, someone might have been injured or died.

And this is a LESSON for those who AIWB and don't heed the fact that you should NEVER point guns at yourself or others unless you intent to fire. Bad luck, mechanical safety failure, something snags a trigger, etc. can happen at any time. Better hope the gun is pointed in safe direction.

 

[Boboclown]

I commend him on knowing that a rifle/carbine is better than a pistol when you're able to get said rifle/carbine.

I wonder how it discharged though. What could it have snagged on? Was it a case of bad luck lottery with the firing pin? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? The world may never know.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Booger buildup on the bang switch.

 

[WAYNO]

I certainly will never know what happened here...But as a demonstration, we'd show folks how it was possible to jar a M-16 just right with the safety off and it could fire without the trigger being pulled. I don't see the cop jarring the weapon, but if we could cause it to happen on purpose, there's nothing to say it couldn't happen by accident.

Proud Graduate, U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School.