And in the irony department...

[Anyee]

Gun safety instructor shoots self in front of children (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/05/01/dea.shooting.ap/index.html)

Whoops. :scratch:

[sam_manzanza]

:lol: Good to know we have people who are careful with guns educating children about them.

Sam

[Jigga-Scrooge]

what would add more is if the children went home and shot themselves.

[swami]

Thankfully the gun was pointed at the ground. It would have been a bit different if one of the kids got shot in a gun safety presentation :grrr: .

Why the gun safety presentation to kids anyway? :scratch:

[th5418]

Why exactly would the gun be loaded...

[bigD72]

Maybe it was to prove a point, even though the audience member said it wasn't loaded it really was and the guy got shot.

I remember as a child I thought if you shot bullets at mirrors they would bounce back :lol:

[SaroDarksbane]

On the bright side, I'm sure those kids will be a lot more careful with guns in the future than they would have been otherwise. :D


Why the gun safety presentation to kids anyway?
Because guns are dangerous, and it would be nice if we could prevent accidents among children. The "stick-your-head-under-a-rock" approach rarely works for other things (Sex, Drug use, etc.), so why would it work for guns?

[IDupedInMyPants]

Something's kinda fishy here. He pulled the magazine, so the only way a bullet could have been in there to fire would be if he had one in the chamber. When he pulled the slide back any bullet in the chamber would have fallen out, either through the top or the bottom depending on how he was holding it. Guns also don't fire just by releasing the slide either, the firing pin shouldn't be able to come into contact with the bullet (that itself couldn't have been in the chamber based on the story) at all in that situation.

I'm sure he shot himself, but under the conditions described in this article to the best of my knowledge it would have literally been completely impossible.

[swami]

Because guns are dangerous, and it would be nice if we could prevent accidents among children. The "stick-your-head-under-a-rock" approach rarely works for other things (Sex, Drug use, etc.), so why would it work for guns?
Would it not be better to give a gun safety presentation to adults? i.e. How to NOT let your firearm(s)/tank/bazooka/whatever else constitutional right bullcrap fall into the hands of chidlers? An adult audience would be better able to comphrehend the dangers of liitle timmy shooting baby sister alice in the face, no? :scratch:

[IDupedInMyPants]

Well, the article says it was a mixed group of adults and "students" without naming a ratio of adults to students or an age group for the students.

I think it's good to educate both. I think any of us who have been a child at Christmas know you can't hide anything from a child for very long, I'd want mine to know not to play around with my gun in the event they found it.

I still don't see how this accident was possible if the story's accurate though.

[Steve_Kow]

Would it not be better to give a gun safety presentation to adults? i.e. How to NOT let your firearm(s)/tank/bazooka/whatever else constitutional right bullcrap fall into the hands of chidlers? An adult audience would be better able to comphrehend the dangers of liitle timmy shooting baby sister alice in the face, no? :scratch:I started using guns (hunting with my father, skeet shooting et.c) when I was 11ish. I think that's pretty common in America actually.

[faultless wonderboy]

What more would you expect from an agent of the DEA?

[mysnistaken]

one in the chamber.....one in the chamber....

[Suicidal Zebra]

What more would you expect from an agent of the DEA?

A better aim? ;)

[faultless wonderboy]

A better aim? ;)
No accounting for sound judgment, however...

[SaroDarksbane]

Would it not be better to give a gun safety presentation to adults? i.e. How to NOT let your firearm(s)/tank/bazooka/whatever else constitutional right bullcrap fall into the hands of chidlers? An adult audience would be better able to comphrehend the dangers of liitle timmy shooting baby sister alice in the face, no? :scratch:
Would it not be better to give sex education courses to adults? i.e. How to NOT let your chidlren get into sexual situations? An adult audience would be better able to comphrehend the dangers of unprotected sex, no?

See the problem? You're assuming that:

1. Parents do what they're supposed to. Ask Anahka about this.
2. Children will only ever see a gun in their own household.

Teaching children how not to shoot themselves and others by accident is a worthwhile goal, I think. But I know, teaching children gun safety turns them into serial killers or something, right? :rolleyes:

[swami]

Would it not be better to give sex education courses to adults? i.e. How to NOT let your chidlren get into sexual situations? An adult audience would be better able to comphrehend the dangers of unprotected sex, no?.
I had a think along those lines myself and came to the conclusion that you can't really compare guns to sex and drugs. Adults only have so much control over the sex lives of their children. You can't prevent access to sexual situations you'd deem inappropriate. You can't take sex away from people. If they wanted it that bad they'd get it. Hence the need for education.

I'm not totally convinced the same can be said of firearms. In order for a child to get hold of a firearm in the first place, an adult at some point would have to seriously mess up, right? i.e. fail to properly secure the weapon, leave a young DasIst unsupervised with Papa's gun etc. etc. Unless in America you have a way for children to get direct access to firearms as adults do. I'm assuming you don't.....



See the problem? You're assuming that:

1. Parents do what they're supposed to. Ask Anahka about this..
No, i don't believe they will do what they're supposed to do with guns. In fact I am a firm believer in the stupidity of the general public; hence my position that educating adults about gun safety in regards to children getting access to them.



2. Children will only ever see a gun in their own household.
No, I don't believe that. But I think that an adult would have to foul up somewhere along the line before a child will get to handle a loaded gun.

[bigD72]

In fact I am a firm believer in the stupidity of the general public


A person is smart; people are dumb

Thought I would just point out the similarity there.

[Kore]

I think everyone there learned a valuable lesson.

I'd also like to add my voice to Duped's question. How could it get fired in the way described in the article? From what I've seen the way you unload a gun is to take out the magazine and then pull the slide to unload the chamber incase there's something in there.

[IDupedInMyPants]

one in the chamber.....one in the chamber....

If that's to me, the one in the chamber would have fallen out when he opened the slide. Assuming he even carries with one in the chamber, which the higher-capacity law enforcement mags make a little less likely.

[SaroDarksbane]

I'm not totally convinced the same can be said of firearms. In order for a child to get hold of a firearm in the first place, an adult at some point would have to seriously mess up, right?
Hey, maybe. But when an adult messes up, because they will, are you just going to say to hell with the kids? It's important to educate adults, to be sure, but when adults make mistakes, is it just going to be "Oops, I guess the kids will just die?"



I am a firm believer in the stupidity of the general public;
I want one of these (http://www.despair.com/idiocy.html). :D

[AeroJonesy]

I read this earlier today. I, too, wondered how on earth the guy got shot. For starters, would he keep one in the chamber when he's off duty, and going to give a gun safety presentation? Then he removed the magazine, and checked the chamber. Where would the bullet have been?

I was surprised the article made no mention that at least he had the gun pointed in a (relatively) safe direction. He did have it pointed down, although his leg was in the way. Imagine if he had just had it pointed any old direction.

I'd like to take this opportunity to pass along a public service announcement. If you're ever checking a semi-auto pistol to see if it's loaded, remove the magazine, then pull the slide back and check the chamber. If you do it the other way around, you'll end up loading the gun.

[IDupedInMyPants]

And on top of that the "fact" that it fired by him closing the slide and not by pulling the trigger is pretty shady. Just that part alone is unheard of as far as I'm aware. If the firing pin tagged the bullet when the slide closed you'd never be able to **** the gun, it'd just fire, blow the slide back to pop the next bullet up into place and fire again as the slide reclosed, repeating until the mag's empty.

There's just no way this thing went down the way the article says and I'd bet that's why it's still under investigation. This guy had to have not actually cleared the chamber or he carried it cocked and popped himself pulling it from his holster or trying demonstrate a grip safety, or something. This story as it stands is just plain old not possible.

Good advice by the way, maybe that's what he did wrong. I know if I pulled that move I'd lie about it too.

[Savage]

I agree the way the article describes makes the incident seem quite bizarre (or, more bizarre). It's either poorly written or someone isn't telling someone the truth.

[Dark Knight]

Heh look at it this way. It probably did an effective job of putting children off of guns.

[masterazn]

What dark knight said. "hey kids, don't do this or this will happen to you!"

[Anyee]

Kids should be taught about sex, guns, and cars from an early age since all three can be both fun and really dangerous. Probably better to show and tell rather than hands-on demonstration though. :D

[SaroDarksbane]

Be careful with sex, show and tell, and children though.

I think you can be arrested for that. :D

[jmervyn]

If that's to me, the one in the chamber would have fallen out when he opened the slide. Assuming he even carries with one in the chamber, which the higher-capacity law enforcement mags make a little less likely.

I see nothing unlikely about the incident; there are a lot of assumptions we're making that aren't taken account of.


He then pulled back the slide and asked an audience member to look inside the gun and confirm it wasn't loaded.

1. The audience member could be an idiot, or just ignorant.
2. The agent/instructor could have made a false assumption regarding #1 and not checked the chamber himself.
3. The round could have very easily failed to extract or not seated properly on the extractor, causing the round to remain chambered even when the slide was pulled back.

If the visual check was not made down the chamber, rather than just in the slide's opening, I can easily concieve of the agent releasing the slide and having the pin strike the round. Of course, most of the time I've seen this happen it was with older M16 models, and it usually was when two rounds were jammed in the upper reciever.

[Yavanna]

Something's kinda fishy here. He pulled the magazine, so the only way a bullet could have been in there to fire would be if he had one in the chamber. When he pulled the slide back any bullet in the chamber would have fallen out, either through the top or the bottom depending on how he was holding it. Guns also don't fire just by releasing the slide either, the firing pin shouldn't be able to come into contact with the bullet (that itself couldn't have been in the chamber based on the story) at all in that situation.

I'm sure he shot himself, but under the conditions described in this article to the best of my knowledge it would have literally been completely impossible.
Possibly the reporter spent two minutes glancing over the police reports and was asked to write an article about it three weeks later, going by what he remembered from the police reports.

[Sergeant]

From what I know personally, the only way that incident is possible is there was a round in the chamber. When he dropped the clip and pulled the slide back, the round wasn't ejected as it should have been but stayed in the chamber or was pulled back by the extractor and held in place instead of being kicked out (more likely).

Then, when he released the slide, the impact was enough to fire thr round off or was enough to release the firing pin.

Either way, there had to be a round in the chamber when the presentation started. Everything else could be chalked up to a faulty firearm. Even if the safety was on, even if the slide was pulled back and the chamber checked, this incident is still perfectly possible (because it happened).

An untrained novice might easily miss a round sitting in the chamber or if the round was not in the chamber but still held inside the barrel assembly. I think what happened was he had a round in the chamber (completely unnecessary) and a small series of mistakes and a faulty firearm led to the outcome.

The good thing is though, most of them have seen firstahdn what happens when someone gets shot and you can bet most of them will treat firearms with a lot of care, respect and safety. So, all in all, bravo to the agent, he was probably more effective than he was planning on being. :drool: