Anybody ever shoot themself ?

[JamesB]

M1 Garand thumb here.

[Calif-Steve]

I've had two different buddies shoot themselves. Both were handguns been removed from holsters and were both locked and cocked. Both discharged, one guy ended up in the hospital, the other didn't.

[villiers]

I did. But I missed.

[Badger]

Got hit in the head (helmet) several times by ricochets .... does that count ...

Regards,
Doug

[enfield303t]

Shooting when younger at a fair where you used Browning Gallery .22's. You know the one where you hit pipes or ducks or whatever. I think I was the only one shooting at the time and felt something hit my nose, picked out a small piece of lead. Of course no shooting glasses in those days and lucky it missed my eye.

[smellie]

I have no personal experience with such, although I do know that it happens.

1. Fellow I knew, many years ago, shot himself in the hand with a .38 S&W shorty, just to prove to his "tough" buddies that he had the "jam" to do it. Poor little F&W ended up at the bottom of the Fraser River: he got right ticked when it hurt!

2. We have a local Hunter Safety Instructor who walks funny, owing to a significant chunk of one foot being missing..... something to do with not knowing the thing was loaded (while he actually was out deer-hunting, by the way) and pulling the trigger anyway. Not smart. He still teaches people how not to shoot themselves. I really wonder how many listen!

3. We have had TWO local members of our vaunted RCMP blow chunks off themelves with their Service sidearms. Of course, being Actual Government Employees, no legal or disciplinary action whatever was taken..... publicly. They were simply transfered to another detachment when the snickering and laughing got to epic proportion. This really makes me ask, when a bunch of new guys are transferred in, "what in blazes did THEY do to get transferred????". A VERY big problem is that they are "experts", whatever that means, and you can't tell them ANYTHING.... and they are so paranoid that it isn't even funny: it's scary. I was stopped once on the highway (random stop: illegal, I know, but don't tell them that or you're in REAL trouble) and the cop went halfway ballistic when he discovered a .303 in the back seat of my car. I told him that it wasn't loaded (of course: I'm not totally stupid) and he screamed at me to get away, that HE was an EXPERT and had been TRAINED on this EXACT rifle (Really? On a 1907 SMLE Mark I***?), all this while he was wrenching at the bolt-handle as hard as he could. Finally, I yelled right back at him that it MIGHT be an idea to rotate the SAFETY to the OFF position, that the bolt then would open without wrecking a very valuable rifle. But it is amazing, the amount of pure ego some of these guys can develop in just a few months of training.

4. On a completelky different note, I have seen TWO sets of autopsy photographs which were enough to make you lose your lunch. In Newfoundland, it was common for small-boat fishermen to carry a single-shot shotgun in the boat, thus making it easier to pot the occasional Turr or even Puffin for dinner (It is legal to shoot Turrs, properly called Murres, in Newfoundland, but not Puffins, which taste just as good and are plentiful.) The problem arrives when the boat comes back to the wharf and the tide is out too far. The shotgun is grabbed by the muzzle and swung up onto the wharf. If the gun is loaded, bad things can happen..... and did actually happen, to two brothers, 3 years apart. The doctor picked the plastic wads out of the men's livers while my friend, the RCMP corporal at Twillingate, stood by, taking pictures for the inquest.

5. And on a far funnier note, there WAS actually, for a few years, a competition for the Manitoba Single-Burst Machine-Gun Championship. The targets were a whole line-up of falling plates and Pepper poppers, the Brandon Rod and Gun Club put on the event and the machine-guns were brought by 3 local collectors, along with vast amounts of ammunition. The idea was to pay your entry fee, pick a machine-gun.... and see how many targets you could knock down while firing ONE MAG in a SINGLE BURST. I was running a community newspaper at the time and it was just about the ONLY paper in the province that would say something good about guns. Even got a great front-page photo of one of the cutest girls I ever saw, just INCREDIBLE grin on her face and SEVEN empties hanging in the air just outside the ejection port of a 1928A1 Tommy. But at the event one year, there was a girl there with a MOST impressive bust...... and a halter-top about the size of a pair of Band-Aids. She was using a Sten Mark II with some ammo that likely should have been condemned.... and she got a hot casing RIGHT between this pair of monuments to God's inventiveness, down where it couldn't be fished out....... and she still had her finger on the trigger of a loaded machine-gun. The gun stopped firing and she started dancing, VERY QUICKLY. Fortunately, only a nasty burn. Likely the scar has faded by now: it WAS 28 years ago! But I'll bet that she sure remembers. Everybody else does, that's for sure!

But nothing personally..... and I'd like to keep it that way.
.

[Badger]

[Rusty.303]

Sort of off topic.
The local cops do all of there qualifications at our range.
Anyhow this particular day one of the cops must have been in quite a rush as he started shootin before his glock even left the holster.
I am not quite sure what ammo the cops use in the .40 s&w however it does have enough power to enter the thigh, exit the thigh, enter the calf and end up in the foot.
After the cop shot himself his mates bundled him into the wagon and raced him to hospital, spinning the wheels all the way to the front gate.
Our range has a speed limit of 20, so the club sent an official letter asking that these rules be observed in the future.
Stirred em right up it did, no sense of humor!

[xa-coupe]

A couple of points:
1 .. I like that Tex Grebner accepts responsibility for his injury. In this day of diminished responsibility, it is quite rare. It is also above and beyond that he shared it like he did. We all know guns, whilst fun, are not toys.
2 .. Freshly minted cops tend to know it all, just ask them. They embarrass the experienced cops as much as they annoy us. Having said that, my brother used to be a shooter and now toes the party line about firearms. They do become 'experts' in their own mind and whilst the reasonable ones can be talked to, the unreasonable ones always know better. Like my brother. Makes for fun times

I might also add a comment about Rusty.303's story. Next time a local copper gives someone from the club grief about something small, remember this story. The club was technically correct but an unoffical word to the local commander would have gone a long way towards addressing the situation without inflaming it. I believe that the shooting community needs to become more aggressive in the defence of our sport but p1ssing off the local cops to prove a point is counter productive. My opinion, clearly not that of the club in question.[COLOR="Orange"]

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Do wars count?

Had a carbine my first tour in Viet Nam in 1967/68. Since they were sold in the early 60's for $20 delivered, did that make it a milsurps type weapon when it was issued to me?