“The Macomb County Sheriff says a female customer at the show accidentally fired a gun not realizing it was loaded,” wxyz.com reports. I’m not sure this needs saying but anyone who handles a gun should safety check the firearm to ensure that it’s unloaded each and every time they handle the gun. Give it to a friend to check it out? Get it back. Check it again. Like an airplane crash, negligent discharges (ND) almost always involve a chain of mistakes, often by a number of people (don’t forget bad training, inadequate supervision and silent bystanders). In this case both the gun’s owner AND the woman test firing the gun are responsible for the ND. And then the gun owner again . . .
The Sheriff says the owner of the gun, a 64-year-old man from Marysville, went to inspect the gun and ended up firing it again. Two women and one child were hit with bullet fragments but were not seriously hurt.
What are the odds the owner walked over to the woman and calmly ask her to surrender the weapon after the ND? My money’s on him trying to grab it from her and causing the second ND. A responsible gun owner does not compound the mistakes of an irresponsible gun owner (the person who’s holding the gun owns it as well as the owner) by doing something irresponsible to prevent a negligent discharge.
Remember: no matter how bad things seem, they can always get worse.
The idiocy makes my head hurt.
WHY is a gun loaded at a gunshow? That’s strictly verboten at every gunshow I’ve ever been to. And I’ve “tested” lots of guns at shows and stores, NEVER have I put live ammunition in one while I was handling it.
I was there! On the other side of the room when this happened. You should have seen everyone jump, then duck. I hit the floor, as did the dealer I was talking to. I did not actually see what happened. Just a crowd of people around the people hit with the bullet spray. I left right away. Didn’t need to part of that shit.
I used to attend the gun shows at that venue pretty regularly, and this is the third incident like this they have had there that I know of. One of the reasons this show nearly ceased to be was the venue’s insistence on high table rentals and admission prices to pay for increased insurance and security. With things like this happening, I see there reasoning.
Ok, I can understand how the first ND happened (not that I in any way excuse it), but how the FRICK did the second one happen?
Thats beyond stupidity!
The gun just fired an ND! The rule all guns are always loaded applies double to it!
The even more stupid part was that it wasn’t right away. The two shots were a good 20-30 seconds apart. So you started to recover from the shock of the first shot, then the second came. No one knew what the hell was going on at first.
I don’t know. Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt. One ND we blame on the gun handler, but TWO? I think we should blame the gun.
No no you missed the big mistake, they get ZERO benefit of the doubt.
WHY was the gun loaded? There’s absolutely no sense in that. Unless it can load itself, in which case I’ll change my mind.
Pretty sure it wasn’t a exhibitor, probably was one of those shady figures trying to sell his gun to a criminal thanks to the gun show loop hole..
All joking aside. Pretty dumb.
Every gun show I’ve ever attended in Texas has a standing rule – they take ALL guns (those for sale and those you bring in) and thread one of those plastic cable ties (the kind with the non-removable, zip tread on one side) through the gun to render it inoperable. The cable tie stays on until the gun is removed from the building. Period. With one of those in place, you simply CAN’T get the gun to fire. The shows hire off-duty local police to check everyone walking in and make sure they unload their concealed handguns and install the cable ties. If you’re caught with a gun that has no tie, you’d be (at a minimum) escorted out and not invited back. You could get arrested. This seems like a simple thing. I don’t know why all gun shows don’t follow the same procedure.
Ditto to the shows I go to in California.
Dang! I frequent this show whenever I’m home from college. I’m planning on heading down there today, I guess I’ll call first to see if they’re open. I’m glad no one was seriously hurt! I’ve heard of a few ND’s that happened here in the past, but fortunately I’ve never been in attendance. The number of dealers and overall size of the show have been slipping the last few years, sign of the times I guess.
On a side note, I’ve been reading this site for a long time – keep it up guys! it’s fantastic, thank you for all of your hard work!
Sounds like your average gun show — in Beirut. One ND in a lifetime is one too many. Two NDs in seconds? Holy freakin’ crap!
I know there’s a joke about the UAW in there somewhere.
Stupid! I wonder if the weapon came into the building loaded or if some idiot loaded it after the fact. Either way, I’d say the fault lies on the owner. His display-his responsibility. Those tie wraps go a long way in preventing rounds being loaded.
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