Tamara has a new article at Breach, Bang, Clear that addresses this vital subject. If you want to know why it's vital, this photograph says it all:
Go read the whole article. It's a warning of which (IMHO) all gun-owners should be reminded at least once or twice every year.
Peter
Oh yes! Gruesome but a good 'reminder' of what NOT to do!
ReplyDeleteThat is a massively long-winded rant that can be summed up with one of the four golden rules of firearms: All guns are always loaded, and should be treated with the respect afforded such.
ReplyDeleteNot the worst I've seen. But, that guy has learned a lesson he'll never forget. Hopefully others will learn from his mistake. He's lucky it's just his left hand.
ReplyDeleteGun safety: yer doin' it wrong.
ReplyDeleteCould be worse. Recall the image of the remains of the soldier's hand who used a .50 BMG round to pound something on the gun's mount?
ReplyDeleteSeriously? He used a .50 BMG round as a *hammer*? How drunk was he? I... *speechless*
DeleteWell, I won't be playing hide and seek with him ... >};o)
ReplyDeletePhil B
I had a co-worker once who, distracted and in a hurry, set out to disassemble and clean a little striker-fired .32 pistol (something like a Raven; I don't recall the actual name of that year's manufacturer).
ReplyDeleteBeing distracted, he got things out of sequence, and the gun went bang. And, yes, his left hand was placed exactly wrong.
The doctors managed to put his hand back together, but one of his fingers was shorter than it used to be.
When he returned to work, there was a rubber left hand stuffed and mounted on the wall of his office, because someone-who-shall-remain-nameless just didn't do Good Taste.
From a purely selfish point of view, I am quite a bit less concerned about the size of the hole some idiot blows through his hand than I am about the fact that, sometime, I may find myself standing next to him.
ReplyDeleteThat his hand gets destroyed before I get shot is small consolation.
Alphonse
Talk about an idiot, and/or people who are unable to learn and change their thinking!
ReplyDeleteThat video of the sheriff who points the muzzle into his hand, the one he shot some years earlier, is mind-boggling.
This reminds me of a quote from my favorite outdoor writer, Robert Ruark:
ReplyDelete"Maybe you think the Old Man was cranky, because I did then, but I don't anymore. I've seen just about everything happen with a gun. One fellow I know used to stand like Dan'l Boone with his hands crossed on the muzzle of his shotgun, and one day something mysterious happened and the gun went off and now he hasn't got any hands anymore, which makes it inconvenient for him.
I've seen drunks messing with "unloaded" guns and the guns go off in the house, sobering everybody up. An automatic went crazy on me in a duck blind one day and fired every shot in its magazine. Habit had the gun pointed away from the other fellow, or I'd of shot his head off with a gun that was leaping like a crazy fire hose. I saw a man shoot his foot nearly off with a rifle he thought he'd ejected him all the cartridges out of. I saw another man on a deer hunt fire into a bush a buck went into and make a widow out of his best friend's wife."
Federal HydroShok does far more damage. Those pics, posted elsewhere several years ago were far more gruesome.
ReplyDelete