I gave up trying to pen our Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day series the moment our Managing Editor Dan Zimmerman posted his first IGOTD. My stuff was all “this is a teachable moment friends.” Dan’s was . . . well, there’s a reason I call him the Most Sarcastic Man in the World. Dan the man’s on Planet Percocet at the moment, awaiting tomorrow’s kidney stone op. Stay thirsty my friend. Or something like that. Meanwhile, this video proves that when it comes to gun safety Florian Graf blows. That’s it. That’s all I got.
[IGOTD = Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day]
I physically cringed when he did that. WTF was he thinking!?
You can hear the guys recording cringe and one says “Ohhh loaded weapon”
He actually got DQ’d and did apologize for his own stupidity.
He tried to clear his front sight.
Coach: No, I said don’t blow your shot.
Maybe he wanted pierced lips?
Wow..
That is a little freaky! And not in a good way!!
I don’t understand what he was doing. Blowing the muzzle clean? It’s got a flip-down cap, and he’d already taken one shot, and it looked like he pulled the trigger at least once after that and it failed. Is a “blowable” barrel obstruction common in that type of gun?
Looked like he was blowing an obstruction off the front sight hood.
He was clearing his sights.
Probably not the smartest move ever, but you try making decisions with your heart rate over 180bmp. Go back and watch his chest heaving.
The “teachable moment” here boys and girls, is that you do stupid stuff when the merde contacts the ventilator.
Having said that, I’d prefer to see them do it with a real gun, and not an overly modified contraption shooting a .22 so slow you can see it in flight with naked eyes.
Edit: He never gets his head in front of the barrel. The sight? Absolutely. The barrel? No.
Agreed. That’s what it looked like to me.
Try that move on any range with an RSO and see if they buy that you never had the muzzle pointed at your face.
NRA Certified RSOs typically don’t allow drawing and firing from holsters either.
Since we can’t see the backstop and the direction of fire, We can assume the Olympic officials have satisfied rule #4. Since he never pointed the rifle at himself or anyone else, which of the four rules did he break?
1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
4. Identify your target, and what is behind it.
Ak, next time you’re on a range with RSO’s try this move for youself. Let us know how that works for you.
BigTex, I slowed down the play and stopped it at the moment supreme. He absolutely muzzled himself. I’m not saying he deserves an IGOTD, but there’s no question that he muzzled himself.
That made me ill. In my opinion, muzzling yourself is only exceded in idiocy be inadvertantly flagging someone else. I would rate it IGOTD material, especially in public captured by the camera. And yeah, I think it’s pretty clear he did the whole deed. But he did it quick, so that’s okay, right?
Seriously, I bet he new as soon as he did it. I bet his scores reflect it.
Wish Bloomie’d muzzle himself…
It makes me sad this is what Olympic shooting has come to. They used to do 200 and 800 yard long range rifle and short range, high speed pistol drills.
It’s BIATHLON. Y’know, ski, ski, shoot. Ski, ski…. what’s the typical range, 50 meters?
Sgt. York would have just licked his thumb and rubbed his sight, gobbled up a turkey call et voila! Ready to rock and roll.
Cmon guys, this guy is a high tier athlete, I am sure he knows what he is doing. It is hard for me to sit here and read all the armchair comments about how this is such a grand travesty. Imagine, you know your machine inside and out, you’ve taken it apart hundreds of times, send thousands of rounds, you’ve run essentially a marathon, you know exactly what needs to be fixed, you do it. Then someone marks you as an IGOTD.
Now if he pointed it at me or someone else, that would be unacceptable, because he’s endangering others. I just give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he’s doing and will take the consequences for his own actions.
Shows what happens when you get too casual about rules. At first I thought he was huffing the gun powder smell. Darwin gave him a break.
I passed the photo along to Florian Graf, together with a few snaps of OFWG’s at the local range. He could only comment, “If these hommes would ski/run 2 miles between shots for a few years, perhaps they could give me a lesson in gun safety.”
Frankly, he wouldn’t be my immediate choice for a lesson. I bet he wouldn’t be justifying that little incident, either. The important thing is, stupid happens. Learn if you live.
There are a lot of reasons that being in a high effort high stress sport cannot excuse this — mainly that the whole rest of his environment is out of his control. Round in the pipe, eye over the barrel, waiting for murphy.
Not a good practice, but this is a biathlon with a highly trained athlete working on a time limit.
I’m guessing the rifle has a hair trigger though. Not the cleverest thing to do.
He was clearing his front sight . If you look carefully there was a drop of water dripping from the rear of his front sight. Many shooters use a front “ring sight” rather than a “post sight” and I am guessing that a film of water covered the ring sight, in the same way as when a round stick is stuck into bubble making solution.
That thing he’s shooting doesn’t even look like a rifle. Purposely, I’m sure.
I thought he was going to kill himself, simply thought he had missed a shot/medal had too much pressure on him for the win…. but when there is millions at steak somethings gonna give sooner or later…… just look at Lance Armstrong rationalising what he’s done
Glad I’ve been giving the meat a rest. Didn’t know steak cost that much!
What in Hell…?!?
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