I was sorry - and angry - to read this report from Utah.
A man accidentally fired his gun while trying to dismantle it and struck a woman who was three bays over at the TNT Gun and Range on Saturday afternoon in Murray ... The bullet went through both of the woman's legs.
Sgt. Paul Christiansen with Murray Police Department said the woman was in her 50s and is expected to make a full recovery. She was sent into surgery the same day to treat her dual wounds.
There's more at the link.
Friends, I've repeated Jeff Cooper's four rules of gun safety many times in these pages. To refresh our collective memory:
- All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
- Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
- Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
This incident was a clear breach of Rule 2 at the very least, and probably Rule 3 as well. Guns don't just "go off by accident" unless someone's fiddling with them, and it's all too easy to let one's finger stray too close to the trigger. (That's not helped by the design of some pistols like the Glock, where one has to pull the trigger - AFTER UNLOADING THE GUN! - in order to disassemble it. If one hasn't properly unloaded it, loud noises can result.)
Thanks be to God that nothing worse happened. One trusts that measures will be taken to teach the erring gun owner better weapon-handling. I hope he has good insurance, because the medical bills resulting from his goof are likely to be high, and I daresay he'll be held liable for every penny of them - as he should be.
Peter
