I Would Never Be That Dumb

We all read the newspaper reports and see the social media posts about people destroying things, shooting themselves or someone else with what they thought were unloaded guns. Usually our first thought is ‘What a moron I would never be that dumb” and to be perfectly honest up until yesterday evening I would have been right there with you. It’s easy to assume the guy is a moron when the only info we have is the result.

The following story is true though I have changed the student’s name. He made a horrendous error but to his credit it took some serious guts for him to tell me about it and let me share it.

Six pm last night I am relaxing in the backyard BBQing dinner when my phone rings. I pick it up and see its John one of my long time students. John has been shooting his entire life. He holds instructor ratings in various disciplines and has taken numerous firearms training courses. I have never seen him mishandle a firearm or breach range safety rules. This is not the guy you expect to make a novice mistake.

I answer and John says in a quiet shaky voice “Bill I am waiting for the cops to show up. I just fired my gun in the house.” My immediate thought was that he had defended himself from an intruder so my first question was ‘Are you ok, did you call cops and ambulance.’ His reply threw me for a loop. “I was dry fire practicing and it went off”. Over the next 30 mins I got the story from him.

John keeps his loaded XD 9mm in a bedside drawer as his home defense gun. The new Hogue grip he had ordered arrived and he was excited to put it on the gun and see how it felt. He unloaded the gun and spent about 10 minutes fitting the grip. It was a bit of a struggle but he got it on and proceeded to dry fire at the mirror on his bedroom wall. Much to his surprise on the first trigger press the gun went off and a hole appeared in the center of his face in the mirror. In shock he unloaded the gun and ran outside to check if the round had left the building. Fortunately for him the mirror was thick glass and had plywood backing which allowed the bullet to fully expand and the stucco to stop it. The only casualty was his mirror some drywall and his pride.

He then went inside and sat on the couch to wait for the police as surely someone would report a shot fired. After about 20 minutes of waiting he called me.

So how did this happen? John broke several rules which culminated in a negligent discharge.

• Always verify your firearm is unloaded before cleaning, dry firing, maintenance, transporting or storing.
• No Ammunition in the room where you Dry Fire, Clean or Work on a firearm.
• Never Dry Fire practice in the room where you store your home defense firearm.

So how can an experienced shooter be such a Moron? It’s actually pretty simple.

While training on the range we are focused 100% on shooting and pay meticulous attention to our safe gun handling. It has been ingrained into us and there is usually an RSO there to monitor us and enforce correct handling.

The home environment is different. We do not train there with live ammo and we don’t have the luxury of an RSO to keep us safe. It is easy to become complacent or get distracted. In this environment it is essential that we are 100% focused on our gun handling. John was not. His focus was primarily on his new grip he was excited and couldn’t wait to try it out. Because he was distracted he then proceeded to make several errors in gun handling with disastrous results.

So yes I still think he is a Moron, but would I Never be that Dumb ? I hope not. How about you? Take a moment and think about it and be honest with yourself. Do you handle your firearm differently at home?

As an interesting foot note nobody called the police to report gunfire. Given where he lives and the time of the incident, I find it impossible to believe nobody heard it.