https://youtu.be/Gsxdk1V8i-M

“Officer Tanya Turnbow, Tooele Police Department, tells FOX 13 News the [unnamed] man and wife were at home Saturday morning and the man was watching an instructional video on how to manipulate his .40-caliber handgun.” Oh how I wish Fox 13 was more specific. What instructional video was on their computer? Did it tell them to clear the weapon before guiding them through a drill or takedown procedure or gun twirling demo? If it was a “why .40 caliber sucks” video (like James Yeager’s above), point taken! Here’s the passively worded money shot . . .

While he was manipulating the firearm, the gun discharged. The bullet struck the man and his wife in their legs, and both were taken to a hospital. Turnbow said the injuries were not life-threatening.

The shooting occurred around 11 a.m. at the couple’s home, which is in the area of 300 South Fairlane Drive.

Turnbow said they urge people to use caution when manipulating firearms and that people should always treat guns as if they are loaded. She said there are no charges or citations in connection with the accidental shooting.

Bad gun! Bad bullet! Still, you gotta admire the weapon system for the negligent discharge twofer. And the Tooele PD for knowing a tool when they see one.

While we give the media grief for using passive construction – removing perceived blame from gun owners who violate gun safety rules – we understand Fox 13’s reticence. How can Toole City be the “Greatest City in Utah” if its residents get a rep for shooting themselves in the proverbial perhaps literal foot?

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49 COMMENTS

    • It goes both ways. I learned a lot on YouTube about what not to do while off-roading. First lesson I learned is if you hear a driver say something like “watch this”, you are about to see his $50K vehicle roll down a hill.

      • Youtube taught me how to build an AR almost entirely, but imo the internet and technology are a double edged sword. You can easily read and learn about history, mechanics, science etc. or #yolo.

        • …it’s … almost as if … this … “innernets” … is just an inanimate tool … its use for better or worse entirely up to the individual using it.

          I think I’ve heard that somewhere…

  2. Oh, let’s blame TV / YouTube. Can we get a “blame Fox” or “blame Bush” in there too? A hat trick.

  3. Way off topic here, however the above video makes clear the comment I made on another post about police 40 S&W firearms falling apart. Now on to the idiot who shot himself and his wife. If you do not know what your doing read the **** manual that came with the firearm, or look it up online before you load ammo and put your bugger finger on the bang switch.

    • I’m suspicious he was performing the (in)famous trick of spinning a loaded Glock, those being so safe and all.

    • struck both in the legs. only one little artery in there to hit and if ya miss it you’re bound to survive. no matter the caliber.

  5. But its a 2 fer! (Insert video game joke here) 🙂
    That’s a pretty impressive/facepalm inducing level of stupidity, I guess this is the reason people clear their already cleared guns on video just in case “that guy” is watching.

  6. I liked Yeager’s Geico caveman helper better. I watch Reid (the caveman) now. He is almost as good for ASMR as Bob Ross. Yeager is no good for ASMR.

  7. While he was manipulating the firearm, the gun discharged.

    Some guns just hate being manipulated. Guns can be very emotional and it makes them angry when they are manipulated by someone they trust. One should always be honest with guns and never try to manipulate them in any way, so they will always remain good friends. That, and CLEAR THE DAMN GUN before you pull the damn trigger, m’kay? Otherwise, you and your wife won’t have a leg to stand on.

  8. From looking at the thumbnail on facebook, I thought Yeager shot himself with a 40… That would be ironic.

  9. May I humbly suggest that James here is generally right and that passively constructed discharges are right or are appropriate for the situation – sometimes. There are times when the details surrounding an AD are not fully known so it is easier and safer factwise to construct the sentence generally and passively. But yeah guns do not go off by themselves we get it.

    James is wrong in that all the calibers mentioned are higher pressure. I get what he is saying and it is hard to state succinctly. Highest pressure ranking:

    1. .357 sig
    2. .40 & 9mm basically tie
    3. .45 gap
    4. .45 acp

    Kinetic Energy ranking:

    1. .45 gap
    2. .45 acp
    3. .357 sig
    4. .40
    5. 9mm

    There are lots of variables and those are broad brush strokes (yeah lots of pressure & KE overlap) but .45 gap is not higher pressure than 9mm and .45 acp has more energy than .40. But all except the .45 acp are on the same frame when it comes to glocks so more boom = faster wear.

    • The .45 GAP has trouble breaking 500 foot pounds with normal 185-230 grain bullet weights. Maybe you’re a fan, but the .45 GAP doesn’t generate superior energy levels to the .45 ACP +P, .357 Sig, .40 Smith, and definitely not the 10mm.

      • He did not state the 10mm and that is on a larger frame anyway. If you are going to bring in +p ammo then do it for the gap – apples to apples. I alluded to this earlier: “overlap”.

        As far the .357 sig goes that is close enough, in terms of specs across a range of firearms & ammo brands, that you could call that one close. But .40? No way.

        The wear argument is a bit weak in that most people will never shoot enough to put a handgun through that much wear but . . . Yeager also mentioned the ability to control the firearm and that does generally (there are things you can do to mitigate recoil) get harder to do once you go above 9mm – and least with glocks. You are getting little in terms of downrange performance & you are loosing control, speed, and ammo capacity.

    • Yes, I didn’t think .40 S&W was much if any ‘higher pressure’ than 9mm so I just checked on Wikipedia and the .40 is listed as 35,000 max psi and 9mm as 35,001 (not sure why SAAMI didn’t just round that down a pound). +p 9mm would be higher pressure than .40. What .40 does have is a case capacity of 1.25 cm3 vs. 0.826 cm3 with 9mm. .45acp runs much lower at 21,000 psi but has a case capacity of 1.6 cm3. My carry choice, .357 magnum also has a 35,000 max psi but they list a case capacity (it does have a case length of 33mm so probably close to double the capacity of 9mm or just about the same as .45).

      Anyway, double the case capacity or double the pressure, either way you double the boom and if you put the big load in the gun designed for the little load you’re going to need more than a stiffer recoil spring.

  11. That bottom line is that you can’t fix stupid.

    Fox, YouTube, Gunsite, NRA trainers, police . . . no one can provide an idiot enough training to keep him/her from shooting themselves or someone else . . or both, by “accident.”

  13. Bullshit,as a wise man once said ( go up an alley and holler fish ). If the 40sw has to much presser the 357sig should explode at ever trigger pull.All firearms parts will wear out but well made guns that crack and fall apart are rare.Yeager should shoot the 22short just to be on the safe side.

  14. Protip: that is not a passively worded sentence. Passive construction occurs when the subject of the sentence does not perform the action. “Gun” is the subject of the sentence in question, and it performs the action “discharge.” The sentence would be passive it read “the gun was discharged,” because, in that case, some unspecified actor acts on the gun, discharging it.

  15. Since my daily carry is a Sig P229 Elite in .40, I watched his video on 40s suck out of curiosity.
    That was also the last time I watched any of his blow hard videos.
    It seems to me that the basis of his complaint that after billions and billions of rounds, the high pressure rounds destroys the gun quicker.
    Yeah so? Pick a gun and practice with it as that’s what’s important. Who freaking cares if it wears out the gun quicker. Don’t buy a hunk of crap and don’t worry about it.

    As far as gun safety, I don’t get it. How hard can it be to keep the gun pointed in a safe direction?
    Seems that pointed at your wife’s legs isn’t very prudent.

      • @ Accur81
        Exactly. BFD if they wear out guns quicker. What percentage of gun owners are going to actually shoot that much anyway? How many rounds would I have to put through my Sig before I had to send it to Sig for a Lube Oil Filter and maybe an O2 sensor? 10s of thousands rounds?
        I’m not losing sleep over it.

        • If you’re going to shoot that many rounds (ammo is expensive) buy 2 guns, carry one and shoot the other. When the shooter falls apart (I’m not holding my breath) buy another. See how easy?

    • I agree, the video in this article stands out not the headline. As I have said before, as we move into the era of the gun, more and more folks having and using firearms will naturally bring about more accidents and/or negligence. I would expect the ratio to be improving, but the raw numbers will rise. That ratio is good reason for reporting on the ND’s even though it may seem to make gun owners look bad.
      But this trainer guy in the video with all his reasons for disliking the .40…Gimme a break! Not well done.

    • I agree except calling him a blowhard is being extremely nice. He sure does think he is something special, down to his gun grabber strategy of claiming .40 users are compensating for their small penis. His opinions routinely stink which is fine and is only my opinion (okay and a lot of others). It is the constant presentation of falsehoods as facts and trying to back them up with all of his “experience” that sucks. I actually prefer .45 and 9mm but .40 is viable and its use is not a legitimate reason for ridicule. I realize my take doesn’t matter unless I can pat myself on the back for training more than his 3000 people this year.

      The goal is to put rounds on target as fast as possible. It doesn’t just come down to the felt recoil but also the behavior of the recoil. While it tends to be better when there is less felt recoil if the barrel ends up far from the original sight alignment it is not going to be fast to shoot. Like most things this joker claims as an absolute it is not. I have a .40 that I can shoot much faster than most 9mm of the same relative size because even though it is a little more snappy the sights line right back up where I had them.

  16. Negligent discharge, what you will never hear, “whut happened?”………… “I pulled the trigger”. Do you really believe anything from a guy whose hair has moved to his chin?

  17. I truly hope TTAG is not actually saying that YouTube is bad for the gun conmunity, while also taking an unnecessary potshot at James Yeager. I may have to unsubscribe if both of those things are the case.

    • Not really bitting the thumb at Yeager, it is RF’s way of trying to drum up extra comments by adding caliber wars to the idiot of the day award, it kinds worked, I am responding to you now. Yeah Yaeger’s hate on .40 was the first and last impression, never watched again. I’m not into watching videos where the guy starts throwing insults at people that carry a caliber he does not.

      • I don’t often watch Yeager because of his general demeanor, but at least his reasoning behind why .40s are pointless is based on something other than opinion. It just seems shady to post an article about someone who got hurt after watching a gun-related YouTube video, imply that the video had bad instruction (even though the exact video was never divulged), and then put up a link to a guy on YouTube giving an opinion on firearms, that has no faulty instruction in it at all. I don’t even know if a gun appeared in that Yeager video (I mostly listened while I shaved this morning). That’s pretty garbage “journalism.”

  18. Wait, you mean .40S&W is not the One True Home Defense Caliber?
    The G23 is not the One and Only Gun to Rule Them All?
    YouTube ‘Legend In His Own Mind’ said so! It must be so!

  20. what a FUBAR video. I mean, even granting that a 40 or 10mm wouldn’t last 50k rounds (and with modern materials I’m not sure they wouldn’t) so frigging what? I’m not running 1k rounds a year of hot 10mms through a handgun.

  21. “While he was manipulating the blade, the knife stabbed him. The sharpened edge struck the man and his wife in their legs, and both were taken to a hospital. Turnbow said the injuries were not life-threatening.

    The stabbing occurred around 11 a.m. at the couple’s home, which is in the area of 300 South Fairlane Drive.”

    See how stupid that sounds?

  22. It’s tooele and it’s far from the greatest city. It did however make it high up on the nations county with the most firearms. Grantsville is just a few miles away and much much nicer in my opinion.
    It just went off haha sounds like a male coming of age joke…

  23. I never plan on clicking on a yeager vid again. I submit he’s not man enough to handle the ferocious unmanageable violent snappy recoil of the fearsome 40(LOL). Man up boys-some of us can shoot anything OK. BTW was the twofer a GLOCK brand GLOCK?

  24. Oh yeah I got a 40 during the great ammo famine. It was the only caliber I always saw in stock(and at a reasonable price). And I honestly couldn’t see a damn bit of difference from 9mm…

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