OT: NRA Museum

We could keep running with this one. Let's talk about those who somehow obtained driver's licenses, and "pilot" tons of metal down the road daily.

BTW, a few weeks ago, Mythbusters put to rest the idea that a bullet fired straight up would be fatal upon impact. They also illustrated that a gun fired at somewhat of a trajectory (as you painted) can obviously kill.

I taught my son and daughters from an early age that you never point at anything you don't want to shoot. 'Nuff said.

also, to instill in anyone the belief that a gun is ALWAYS loaded, regardless of whether you've just emptied it yourself. I learned that while watching a fraternity brother show me his roommate's .45 automatic. Yeah, it discharged, went through three drywall walls, skipped over the hoods of two cars and lodged in the final stucco wall of the garage. We were lucky. When we were leaving Korea 50 years ago, we visited a colleague in hospital there, who'd been firing on a pistol range, went to place his .45 back in his holster when it discharged. He was leaving the range and wondered why it had discharged, and as he walked toward his Jeep, his boot started squishing, and he found that he'd made a nice 1/2 inch groove that ran from above his knee to just above his ankle. The squishing sound coming from his boot was his blood, which also covered his pantsleg. His leg didn't start to hurt until he realized what he'd done.. It was fortunate that it missed his kneecap and broke no bones.

That goes without saying for me, but OMMV. We just hand each other guns with the actions open. Easy to check.

You were. When I was twenty, and living in an apartment, my idiot neighbor accidentally discharged a .22 rifle into his ceiling. He immediately ran upstairs to check the neighbor who ended up not being home. Not that a .22 would have had much chance of penetrating the layers between floors, but you never know.

About 30 years ago, a young man in Anaheim, California was playing tough guy with a .45. He shoves it down the front of his pants right before an accidental discharge.

He was never destined to father any children.

I used to work with a guy who was an expert at car electrical systems, so when he got himself a Colt Python (.357 magnum), he figured his expertise meant he was also an instant gunsmith. Went to his house one day and he was doing two things at once: Smoking a joint, and doing trigger work on the gun, which was clamped in a very official looking vise. I didn't know squat about guns, but I knew enough not to stand in front of one. This paid off because at one point, he says "Let's see how this feels now...", and pulls the trigger. Blam! Puts one through the wall of the room, through the wall of the room across the hall, and into his water heater. His nervous dog had been snoozing in the hall, and it pissed all over the rug, but that didn't matter because half the water in the water heater was also dripping out of its closet and into the hall.

His wife was away on a business trip when this happened, so he had time to replace the water heater and have the carpet cleaned. His only comment on the incident was that maybe his hand load formula was a little too hot.

You'd think that would've been a lesson to him, but nooooooo! A few months later, our boss asked him if he could borrow a tool. He opens the bottom drawer of the guy's tool chest and asks "D, why's there a gun in here? Is it loaded?" He explains that he's going to the range later. Picks up the gun (this time, a .22 Beretta, if I recall), aims it at the wall and says "See? There's no round in the chamber..." Pulls the trigger and puts one into the pegboard. Turned white, handed me the gun, went out back and smoked half a pack of cigarettes. He was a LOT more careful after that.

Darwinism at its finest.

Or have any happiness while naked, I guess. Gee, that smarts just thinking about it.

Remember the case in Long Beach CA about a decade ago or more when a revolver discharged in the police station and killed a police reporter for the local paper? There were two policemen present, and one said he'd been holstering his revolver and it fell to the floor on the hammer, discharging it. In about the time it takes to tell it, knowledgeable gun owners (and probably gun shops) came forward and said "Sorry kids, but any double action revolver made in the last century CAN NOT fire if the hammer is struck with the trigger forward. The trigger, when it's pulled, activates a bar within the frame that allows the firing pin to go forward into the chamber, allowing the pin to strike the primer." Remember the ancient Iver Johnson slogan "Hammer the Hammer." ?

Then they admitted shamefacedly that they'd been playing some quick draw horseplay and one had indeed fired his weapon.....into the reporter who was an innocent bystander.

It gets better: The guy was having an affair, and when he took woman #2 out to dinner or whatever, he used the American Express card that he'd had for years. For the same number of years, his wife had been in charge of paying the bills. He came home to find the locks changed one night.

Duh. :-)

He really was a genius as far as custom car stereo & security systems, though.

It was pretty sad. The wife of a co-worker was the operator who took the emergency call. As memory serves, the guy was in his mid-teens.

I remember that. When S&W first marketed their "wonder nine", the model 59 with a 15 round capacity, the Santa Ana police department had a few issues with supposed "accidental" discharges. It turns out that rather than a discharge happening when the gun was dropped, the cop was screwing around with the gun when he shot through the patrol car windshield.

I've got a friend who's the rangemaster for a sub-station of the San Diego Sheriff's Department. He can tell you some hilarious stories about how inept many cops are with their firearms.

What kind of people do you hang out with AH?

A savant.