When the unthinkable happens to you - self-inflicted gunshot wound

[Siglvr]

I would think most of the regular readers here have appreciated your openness too.

Right here: me. Can't be too careful. I've only had one negligent discharge. Many many years ago when I handed my loaded M16 to my armorer buddy. I was suppose to have cleared the chamber after pulling the mag out. I'd been on this routine for a long bit of time and it was on auto pilot, I'd been carrying a loaded weapon a lot at this point and it was second nature. But I didn't clear the chamber. Just handed it to the armorer.

He'd been doing the same procedure for years as well, take the weapon, pull the charging handle back, visually check that the chamber was clear and then pull trigger. Not this one time though. He took it, flipped the safety, pulled the trigger and blew a conical shaped hole in the concrete roof.

We were both surprised. On that one day, neither of us followed correct procedure that we had been trained to do and indeed that we always did. It's all of us, or any of us and I appreciate the reminder. Thanks for sharing and heal up!

 

[fredball]

Get well soon!

 

[orygun]

I've only read @SynapticSilence post, none of the replies (well, except Stompers) so I'm probably just jumping on the bandwagon now.

But I really appreciate the thought behind this thread. Thanks for posting.
I hope you are well on the way to being healed, both physically and mentally. I can't imagine how much of a PIA the whole thing is.
I once had glass rain down on me when the beautiful Browning 45-70 went off and shot thru the canopy door as I was preparing to unload it. To this day I have no recollection of touching the trigger when I went to drop the lever, but I surely must have. At that point in time, decades (yeah, I'm old, too) of muzzle control habits paid off and the gun was pointing skyward. Scared the livin crap out of me. Also reinforced with me why we need to handle firearms with extreme care. I considered it a "friendly" reminder.

 

[SynapticSilence]

A sobering side note. I finally posted the story to my Facebook page. One of my friends, also an Air Force vet, replied in a personal message. Ted said that while we both were stationed together in Berlin, he got a call from his aunt. His twelve year old nephew had been getting ready to go hunting with his dad. He had reached under his bed to retrieve his shotgun he kept there. His father supposedly controlled the ammunition under lock and key and religiously checked and cleared all the firearms in the house, but somehow the kid's shotgun was loaded. As he pulled it out, it went off and struck his six year old sister who was standing nearby in the torso. She bled out before the ambulance arrived.

That was back in the mid 1980s. Ted said that the family, and especially his nephew, never really recovered from the tragedy. I'm a semi-retired psychologist now and I can attest to having seen how events like that can ripple through families and even through multiple generations. I'm so thankful that the only person injured in my moment of lapsed concentration was me. Food for thought, anyway.

 

[leadcounsel]

To the OP, thanks for the courage to post. It is a good reminder for all of us to be careful.

I have not read all the posts but in skimming I wanted to respond to one thing. I'm in no way criticizing you and realize this was traumatic. However it must be addressed. You mentioned blaming the gun indirectly by saying you'd be getting rid of guns that don't have external safeties, or are implicitly "less safe."

That's a trap of blaming the gun for being "defective" when in fact the gun operated exactly as it should with remarkable reliability. YOU racked the slide and pulled the trigger in some fashion (accidentally or negligently). The gun did exactly what it's designed to do. It was operator error. Please don't fall into the trap of blaming the gun here - which I don't think you meant to do given you did take full responsibility in the original post. I think getting rid of various guns is an emotional (albeit understandable) over-reaction one might expect from someone suffering the trauma or loss due to "gun violence." I.e. blame the gun. Since you are in the psychological field, I think you'll self realize your own response as emotional and not logical.

It can happen to anyone that is careless. On a deployment as a staff officer in a Spec Ops community we had a senior individual who (fatigue, stress, exhaustion?) had a total brain malfunction and long-story short, thought a loaded 1911 was unloaded and pointed it at another officer and, when challenged to not do that with a loaded gun, to "prove" it was unloaded pointed it at the wall near him and pulled the trigger, putting a hole in the wall and nearly hitting two people with a .45 slug. Now a 1911 is obviously very safe in inherently, but the user had a real malfunction at 3am...

That's just like your situation. The gun worked as designed. It was 100% user error. Safety or not, had you dropped the mag (thereby removing the feed device) and racked it (thereby removing the round, assuming extraction was working) it would have been literally impossible to fire a round as the gun would have been unloaded.

 

[SynapticSilence]

To the OP, thanks for the courage to post. It is a good reminder for all of us to be careful.

I have not read all the posts but in skimming I wanted to respond to one thing. I'm in no way criticizing you and realize this was traumatic. However it must be addressed. You mentioned blaming the gun indirectly by saying you'd be getting rid of guns that don't have external safeties, or are implicitly "less safe."

That's a trap of blaming the gun for being "defective" when in fact the gun operated exactly as it should with remarkable reliability. YOU racked the slide and pulled the trigger in some fashion (accidentally or negligently). The gun did exactly what it's designed to do. It was operator error. Please don't fall into the trap of blaming the gun here - which I don't think you meant to do given you did take full responsibility in the original post. I think getting rid of various guns is an emotional (albeit understandable) over-reaction one might expect from someone suffering the trauma or loss due to "gun violence." I.e. blame the gun. Since you are in the psychological field, I think you'll self realize your own response as emotional and not logical.

It can happen to anyone that is careless. On a deployment as a staff officer in a Spec Ops community we had a senior individual who (fatigue, stress, exhaustion?) had a total brain malfunction and long-story short, thought a loaded 1911 was unloaded and pointed it at another officer and, when challenged to not do that with a loaded gun, to "prove" it was unloaded pointed it at the wall near him and pulled the trigger, putting a hole in the wall and nearly hitting two people with a .45 slug. Now a 1911 is obviously very safe in inherently, but the user had a real malfunction at 3am...

That's just like your situation. The gun worked as designed. It was 100% user error. Safety or not, had you dropped the mag (thereby removing the feed device) and racked it (thereby removing the round, assuming extraction was working) it would have been literally impossible to fire a round as the gun would have been unloaded.

I in no way implied that it was the gun's fault. If you read my post(s) I take full responsibility for everything that happened here. My decision to switch to guns with external safeties (which I've since reconsidered) was merely an attempt to have guns that all had the same manual of arms since I'm not quite as quick mentally as I was when I was 21. After thinking on that, I very quickly changed my mind since, as you point out and I actually originally claimed, it was my being in too much of a hurry and rushing to get ready to go to the range that caused the issue. Over a hundred people read my post and none until you managed to find anything approximating what you got from it. So, as tough as it may be, perhaps you actually do need to take the time and read all the posts and my responses to them before you tag me with that kind of uninformed criticism. I think this is more about your need to use my post to make your own point than anything that has to do with my own evaluation of the situation.

 

[leadcounsel]

I in no way implied that it was the gun's fault. If you read my post(s) I take full responsibility for everything that happened here. My decision to switch to guns with external safeties (which I've since reconsidered) was merely an attempt to have guns that all had the same manual of arms since I'm not quite as quick mentally as I was when I was 21. After thinking on that, I very quickly changed my mind since, as you point out and I actually originally claimed, it was my being in too much of a hurry and rushing to get ready to go to the range that caused the issue. Over a hundred people read my post and none until you managed to find anything approximating what you got from it. So, as tough as it may be, perhaps you actually do need to take the time and read all the posts and my responses to them before you tag me with that kind of uninformed criticism. I think this is more about your need to use my post to make your own point than anything that has to do with my own evaluation of the situation.

And PS, yes, in fact, you did claim it was the guns fault.

Yep. Precisely. It took an epiphany like this to change my mind. I'd talked myself into believing that a DA/SA firearm was safe when decocked due to the long DA trigger pull. But then I bought guns like the PPQ .45 I just put up for sale that truthfully can't be safed in any reliable way. So I dumbed down my own safety rules. Just lucky I didn't plug myself with the .45, since I carry the 120 Grain Underwood XTreme Defender round in it. That most definitely would have blown my ankle right out. Re-evaluation of your beliefs is essential for continued safety. The moment you start arguing with yourself that it's not necessary is the time you're starting to fool yourself. Others are free to have their own thoughts on this, but it's just where I am along the continuum right now.

While you did correctly place blame on yourself in the original posts, later you plainly blamed the gun or other guns you "perceive" as not as safe. That is false. And emotional. We see it from the anti-gunners routinely. And you're incorrect in that it has NOTHING to do with your "beliefs." There are rules of safety. You broke them. That ended up getting yourself shot. End of story.

If you follow the 4 rules, they (guns with decockers, or built in safeties) are entirely safe. If you drop the slide on a loaded round, squeeze the trigger, while flagging yourself, you're liable to shoot yourself.

Conversely, had you removed the mag and racked the slide (removing the live round), the gun is 100% safe and impossible to fire regardless of any safety or lack thereof.

Rather than change your "beliefs" or superstitions, maybe just revisit the fundamentals.

 

[SynapticSilence]

Nah, you've entirely mis-interpreted my post. And you didn't bother quoting the KEY prefatory statement I made: "I'm in no way criticizing you and realize this was traumatic. However it must be addressed. You mentioned blaming the gun indirectly by saying you'd be getting rid of guns that don't have external safeties, or are implicitly "less safe." "

Not super interested in reading 9 pages of the same "get well soon" responses. Or arguing. Sorry I bothered engaging. Good luck with your recovery.

I'm thinking you didn't read my last response, either, since I included why I mentioned switching to guns with external safeties and it wasn't because guns without them are less safe. Sorry I sounded a bit ticked, but I've been handling guns for 55 years without incident and had you take one thing I mentioned out of context and spin it. And yeah, I'm a a shrink. And yeah, it was traumatic. But writing this has been my own way of actually clarifying what I was thinking and the mistakes I made in the moments leading up to the ND. As one patient said to me once, "I'm in my head and you're not, so don't tell me what I'm thinking." He had a good point.

 

[leadcounsel]

I'm thinking you didn't read my last response, either, since I included why I mentioned switching to guns with external safeties and it wasn't because guns without them are less safe. Sorry I sounded a bit ticked, but I've been handling guns for 55 years without incident and had you take one thing I mentioned out of context and spin it. And yeah, I'm a a shrink. And yeah, it was traumatic. But writing this has been my own way of actually clarifying what I was thinking and the mistakes I made in the moments leading up to the ND. As one patient said to me once, "I'm in my head and you're not, so don't tell me what I'm thinking." He had a good point.

Eh, I'll just quote what you previously wrote, and chalk it up to probably emotion, medication, and poor memory.

Yep. Precisely. It took an epiphany like this to change my mind. I'd talked myself into believing that a DA/SA firearm was safe when decocked due to the long DA trigger pull. But then I bought guns like the PPQ .45 I just put up for sale that truthfully can't be safed in any reliable way. So I dumbed down my own safety rules. Just lucky I didn't plug myself with the .45, since I carry the 120 Grain Underwood XTreme Defender round in it. That most definitely would have blown my ankle right out. Re-evaluation of your beliefs is essential for continued safety. The moment you start arguing with yourself that it's not necessary is the time you're starting to fool yourself. Others are free to have their own thoughts on this, but it's just where I am along the continuum right now.

I did not intend to stir up or sow any dis-content. I genuinely appreciate the courage to put this out there and think it benefits the gun community to remind us that safety is paramount.

I got urked when I read this quoted piece and felt the need to address it without wading thru more pages of the same dialogue. You were wrong to write or even imply the gun was at fault. Accept it. Reject it. I care not. It's important to highlight that is a faulty line of reasoning and ammo for the anti-gunners who want to sue gun makers into extinction, restrict gun rights, etc. This was YOUR doing. Not any fault of any gun design whatsoever.

 

[SynapticSilence]

And PS, yes,

And PS, yes, in fact, you did claim it was the guns fault.



While you did correctly place blame on yourself in the original posts, later you plainly blamed the gun or other guns you "perceive" as not as safe. That is false. And emotional. We see it from the anti-gunners routinely. And you're incorrect in that it has NOTHING to do with your "beliefs." There are rules of safety. You broke them. That ended up getting yourself shot. End of story.

If you follow the 4 rules, they (guns with decockers, or built in safeties) are entirely safe. If you drop the slide on a loaded round, squeeze the trigger, while flagging yourself, you're liable to shoot yourself.

Conversely, had you removed the mag and racked the slide (removing the live round), the gun is 100% safe and impossible to fire regardless of any safety or lack thereof.

Rather than change your "beliefs" or superstitions, maybe just revisit the fundamentals.

Eh, I'll just quote what you previously wrote, and chalk it up to probably emotion, medication, and poor memory.



I did not intend to stir up or sow any dis-content. I genuinely appreciate the courage to put this out there and think it benefits the gun community to remind us that safety is paramount.

I got urked when I read this quoted piece and felt the need to address it without wading thru more pages of the same dialogue. You were wrong to write or even imply the gun was at fault. Accept it. Reject it. I care not. It's important to highlight that is a faulty line of reasoning and ammo for the anti-gunners who want to sue gun makers into extinction, restrict gun rights, etc. This was YOUR doing. Not any fault of any gun design whatsoever.

We're in total agreement on that point. If I'd finished out my point re the PPQ, I would have added that it can't be physically safed through any external means rather than 'meaningful means', in line with my initial decision to go with a single manual of arms. I also understand your point about anti-gun people. As a psychologist who's also a staunch second amendment supporter, I find myself a part of a population where n=2 as far as I know. The second person in that group is my wife, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who can outshoot me pretty much any day of the week. Going back to my contract job a few weeks ago, I faced a bunch of people who were aghast to learn I owned and carried firearms. I've made it my mission of sorts to try and educate them on the issue. It hasn't been very successful, as you can likely imagine. Anyway, I can see now from my quote how you gleaned what you did, but it wasn't my purpose to ever blame the firearm or any firearm for the ND. And I'm sure if my foot wasn't throbbing like hell after having had to support me all day while I made it do things it hasn't done in a couple of months, I probably would have been a bit more reserved in my response. If you're ever down this way (Vancouver area), let me know. I'd be glad to buy you a cup of coffee. Take care.