Accidents Happen

Guns are no different than anything else. If improperly used you can get seriously injured. Still this story really disgusts me:

A woman practicing shooting at a local firing range apparently shot herself accidentally this afternoon, according to police.

The victim was rushed to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro.

Three firefighters were treating the woman in the back of the ambulance — an indication the injuries likely are serious, police said.

The incident was reported about 2 p.m. at the American Firearms School in the industrial park off John Dietsch Boulevard.

Witnesses said they speculate the woman’s gun may have jammed.

Now this place has been pushing its services HEAVILY in Massachusetts as the place to go to shoot and get firearms training. I actually talked to Jay a few years ago about us possibly seeing if they’d give us some range time in exchange for a little blog press. Neither of us followed up on it.

I have a friend who fired her first gun after using a groupon deal they offered.

This place is CATERING to inexperienced shooters. Now I won’t go so far as say they were negligent, as even my little informal one-on-one classes there’s always the possibility that somebody could COMPLETELY unplug their brain and do some damage, but that’s really slight, as I tend to stand beside my new shooter and watch only the gun while they shoot. They often ask how their groups look after a string, and I tell them I have no idea, but I can tell they’re marking paper by how they pull the trigger, and I can also tell if they’re getting tired and need a break, and will often call a cease fire mid-string if their form starts getting sloppy. This standing position allows me to quickly grab the gun if they even come CLOSE to breaking the 180 at the range.

Still brand new shooters should NOT be clearing jams, and should be forbidden to do so even if they think they can get that gun running again. New shooters should be concentrating on safety, form, safety, marking paper, trigger pull, safety, and safety for their first trip to the range, and probably several subsequent ones.

Who knows if the “clearing a jam” part of the story is legit, but I can see it. A person not strong enough to easily manipulate the slide turning the gun in an unsafe direction, and add in the nasty habit of leaving a finger on the trigger could easily cause a negligent discharge. Why that should get to that point on a hot firing line is REALLY bad news.

**UPDATE** It appears that sadly the woman has died….

Next up is a little bit of an anti-gun spin:

In 2012, more people were seriously hurt by accidental gunshots in Washington state than in any previous year in nearly a generation.

Hospitals here admitted 122 people with “unintentional firearm” injuries that year, the latest for which data is available. Hundreds more were treated in emergency rooms but not admitted. More still were wounded in accidents that were not classified as such.

This is a secondary saw of the antis. You see accidental firearm “Gun Death” isn’t very high. It was only 7 (SEVEN) in the same year, and this isn’t any higher or lower than other years.

Also while 2012 wasn’t a good year for firearms injuries, this isn’t a trend, but a data-point, and statistically it isn’t much change from any other year.

Also the story is loaded with anecdotal stories rather than a larger look at the accidents. How many of these were people illegally owning guns for illegal vocations? Hell they spend their time talking about young kids getting a hold of poorly secured guns, but note the mode age is 22.

Agenda?

They also note that some of the accidents result in criminal charges. Hey but we NEED to do SOMETHING.

Yeah we need to properly secure our firearms when there are kids about, and by that I mean don’t leave them around loaded. A young child will not be able to defeat a simple lock, or even load an unloaded gun! And we need to be better about drumming the 4-rules of gun safety into new shooters, or even experienced shooters who should know better!

Be safe out there! Accidents do happen, and sadly we will never be rid of negligent firearms accidents, but we can do a lot to prevent many of them…and frankly we are!