Yes, I’ve seen someone look into the barrel of a gun after it failed to fire. And plenty of people drawing their weapon with less control than a first time golfer wielding a driver. Not to mention women hopping around with a loaded gun after hot brass flew into their cleavage. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen someone do with a gun? First person. Not via video.
Home Question of the Day Question of the Day: What’s the Stupidest Thing You’ve Ever Seen Someone...
Id say its easily the couple times I’ve been shot at downrange. Not downrange in Iraq or Afghanistan… but downrange at the local ranges that don’t have range officers.
We don’t even go there anymore if there will be people there, we always carry concealed, and have one person change targets while the other provides overwatch.
I had one day with a lot of different people doing really dumb things with two handguns.
It was a couple decades ago when I was in school and working as the Forman for a home improvement contractor crew. Some rich folks bought a house and wanted to finish the basement and add on an extension. So we were down there tearing stuff up to get ready for the extension and we came across two handguns, one was a 1911 and the other a luger. I thought they might belong to the owners and so decided to inform them of my find and give them a chance to relocate them.
The owners freaked (especially the wife) to find out there were guns in their house and asked me to move them to a makeshift table nearby (read: plywood on two sawhorses). They insisted the guns were not theirs and started speculating that they must have been hidden because someone killed somebody with them. I tried to convince them that stashing guns is extremely common and they were probably simply stashed and then for whatever reason forgotten by the previous owners, possibly the stasher died or something. They refused to listen to reason and logic, and got more and more hysterical. Then I offered to take them from the premises and they insisted the cops be called instead. This was dumb thing number one, it gets much worse.
So, the cops show up, pretty quickly, probably due to the hysterical blathering of the woman when she called 911 to report she had discovered some murder weapons in her house. Three cops in fact. I am there answering the questions like where they were found and how and by whom. The cops look at the guns and start having a conversation about whether or not they are loaded. Not one of them touches the guns. And I realize not one of them knew how to check the guns to see if they were loaded. This of course floored me because they were cops, they carry guns (to be fair they all had revolvers).
I of course don’t touch the guns, because the last thing a civ wants to do is be holding a gun with cops around, it tends to shorten your life span considerably. But the cops start to realize I know more than them about the guns, far more. So one of them asks me if they are loaded to which I inform them that I already checked, they are loaded. This was dumb of me, so dumb thing number two, I should have unloaded them before the cops showed, not real sure why I didn’t.
Now it gets crazy, the cops asked me to unload the guns for them. They didn’t want me to walk them through it, they wanted me to pick up a loaded weapon in their proximity and unload it, twice. Now, consider I didn’t know any of the cops there, not one of them even a little. I was a perfect stranger to them, in my low 20s, and about all they did know about me is I knew a few things about firearms. Not a one of them backed away, took some sort of cover, put a hand near their weapons, moved to a better tactical position, or anything to ensure their safety. Had I the inkling to become a cop killer I could have easily wasted three seasoned cops in cold blood as they stood literally feet from me shoulder to shoulder with stupid looks on their faces. They didn’t even bother to check to make sure I was who I said I was or if I had a record. So while technically they never touched the guns, at least not until after I unloaded them and showed them they were unloaded, that was easily the dumbest thing that I have ever seen done involving guns. And the fact that there were three of them, all cops, makes it even dumber.
Then the saddest thing ever happened, the cops took the guns. I am sure they were destroyed, what a shame.
I saw a woman roll up to a public range with 6 of her small children in tow and 2 or 3 boyfriends, pull a hi-point out of her purse, lasering all of her as they ran around like a swarm of lunatics, in front of her, and other shooters, and as a few of them are doing this and hanging on her leg and such she blasts off a magazine rapid fire, hitting dirt in all conceivable locations on the range except the backstop, no hearing protection for her or the kids.
Other shooters at the range literally hit the ground and were tripping over themselves backing away from the scene and we all began YELLING at her to cease fire and put the gun on the GROUND. I tried to calmly explain to her that she needs to keep her kids in check and get ear plugs in their heads for their own sake, and then other more enraged bystanders started laying into her. She emitted a bunch of unintelligible crap about not telling her how to raise her kids and stuff. Her boyfriends were posturing and scowling, and then picked up her piece, threw it in her purse (no holster by the way), and they jumped back in the minivan and peeled away.
I watched a guy attempt to load 9mm into a .45 Glock on the theory that “it’s smaller, the gun can handle it”.
That is SO funny! Can it?
No. Even with a 10mm (smaller bore diameter than a .45) a 9mm cartridge will just fall right through the barrel, having never stopped in the chamber.
I know guy who mixed Makarov in 9×18 and 9×17. Twice. First tried to load 9×17 into 9×18, then vice versa.
A field grade officer on our last deployment tried to show us how easily the safety on an M9 could be flipped by rubbing his M9 on his shirt. He pulled his M9 out of his belt (#1), flagged everyone in attendance with his weapon (#2), failed to ensure the weapon was cleared (#3) and then began to rub his M9 on his shirt in an attempt to flip the safety off (#4). All of this within seconds. As we were all MPs, we immediately began rapidly moving back and towards cover. His CSM stepped up from behind and whispered in his ear. He stopped his demonstration.
I was shooting at the range when I got a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see a lady holding a magazine. Her boyfriend, husband, whatever, is standing a few lanes away with a blank look on this face. The lady then asks me, “Is he loading this correctly?” I was so taken back by the strangeness of the situation I stared blankly back for a minute. After getting my bearings I showed her how to load the magazine. I should have said, as politely as possible, “Perhaps you might want to hold off shooting until you learn how the firearm works.”
She returned to her male friend at their lane. I finished shooting and started getting ready to leave. As I was walking out an employee of the shooting range (I won’t call him a range safety officer, because they did not have any) was saying to the guy, “Yeah, don’t do that or you will shoot yourself in the leg.” Once I got outside and had more time to digest the situation I was more angry at the gun store staff for letting these people onto the range. It was pretty obvious to me they had no firearms experience and had no place being there.
From driving to cooking to music to playing poker very few people I know have actually been self-taught any significant skill. I don’t know what it is about firearms that makes so many people think they’re different, that they can just pick one up and know how to use it.
We need to continue self-policing our hobby to keep knuckleheads like this from hurting anyone.
The problem is so much of this is hard to learn if you live in an anti-gun area. I live in a very anti-gun area (Illinois) and am looking to buy my first gun, in non air-gun form, and I’m almost 30. I know the 4 rules of gun safety and try and learn most of the basics but when you only know two people who actually shoot firearms, it’s hard to learn some of the more minute stuff. You can only read so many articles on gun safety. And I really don’t want to be the Jack Ass at the range where people whisper “What is he doing?”
I know what you mean. I come from anti-gun mother and an uninterested father. Nearly all I know comes from online, and speaking to a handful of people. I learned the four rules from Boy Scouts and not much else. When I meet people who shoot, I always try to spark up a conversation about firearms. I started renting handguns at a nearby range and got my dad into shooting that way. The guy at the desk (no ranger officer, everyone polices themselves) showed me how to load, unload, chamber a round, and how the trigger on a Glock works. I try techniques based on what I read and I practice. That is how I learned how to shoot. It is hard to teach yourself, but it is possible. But the most important asset to a self taught shooter is common sense. If you are known for lacking this, pay and instructor.
A long time ago in a galaxy far away called The Bronx, my peeps and I were threatened by a guy with a toy gun. Right about now, he should be coming out of his coma.
dumbest thing i did was as a teen i was shooting my bb gun off a bridge into the water below and did not notice that the police were on both sides of me with there guns drawn when we made eye contact they said “drop the weapon” …i did….right into the river …. the cops started to laugh and left laughing all the way to there cars….
Target shooting with 200′ hill as back stop, rounds start coming in. Drove to back side of hill, 4 wanna be’s all dressed in camo with paper target at top of hill. After asking them WTF did they think the rounds would stop they agreed to have a piece of the hill behind their target. Never went back.
Guy I was in the service with, gets asked by a local land owner to take care of some ground squirrels that were tearing up his pasture. This guy makes the evening news with footage of him wearing camoflage laying in a ditch along the highway, with his scoped bolt action rifle, as the county sheriff approaches him with gun drawn. I think he eventually got his rifle back but he never lived down being the mad sniper.
Recently at the range, I wasn’t wearing eye protection – just my glasses. I was standing behind Margaret watching her shoot, and one of the spent cartridges came flying… right down behind one lens. Parked on my cheek. 2nd degree burn. OUCH! Now I wear my eye protection, like I’m supposed to!
And yes, we both have always worn ear protection. 🙂
I like to wear a hat when handgun shooting for this very reason, the bigger the brim the better. Most rifles eject the spent caisings more horizontally than vertically, so it usually isn’t an issue with them.
I do have to be carefull when firing my PSL however as it ejects the casings at a really high velocity to the right, they can fly 30 to 60 feet. If people refuse to give me the far right lane at the range, I simply set up with the PSL as close to the right as possible. Never made it through a full mag before everyone to my right is begging and pleading with me to take the right lane.
One guy was a real jerk when I asked for the right lane, started berating me for asking him to move his stuff even after I explained that I was asking for his safety. Set up to his left, fired two shots in quick succession, both casings hit his scope deflecting them straight up and back down on him (and 7.62x54R casings are not light). Five minutes later I fired the third shot from the right lane.
After he offered to switch you should have said. Nah, this lane is actually growing on me. (Joking)
Just remembered another one!
When I was just a kid in the boy scouts, I was senior patrol leader and we were at a scout camp that included a rifle range. We had a boy in our troop that was clearly and severely mentally disabled. His head was shaved and had all kinds of scars from when they did surgeries on him, his eyes were crossed, and he could barely get out the five or six words he actually knew. It was clear to anyone, and I mean anyone, in mere seconds that this kid was not all upstairs.
Well, I am sitting in some merit badge class somewhere and all of a sudden the camps loudspeaker system comes on calling me by name and my scoutmaster and demanding we come to the rifle range sooner than ASAP. My first thought was that someone had hurt themselves, then I remembered the challenged kid, we’ll call him George, and remember thinking “Holy @#$% someone gave George a gun.”
So I get to the range and sure enough, tons of scouts hiding behind trees, the two range workers are hiding behind a desk screaming for him to put the gun down, and George is standing in the middle of the range waiving the rifle around. I hid for a second, then remembered they only had single fire bolt action .22lr rifles that had to be hand cocked in addition to auctioning the bolt. There was no way George could have done all that, just getting the round in the pipe was hard for someone with full coordination and uncrossed eyes. So I walked up to George and took the gun away. Then walked George and the gun over to the desk the two workers were hiding behind and preceded to explain to them all the reasons they were more retarded than George (this was in the 80s, pre PC).
The camp tried to kick us out, but assistant scout master was a lawyer in real life, and he explained how if we got kicked out he would have to go to the press, George in tow, and explain to them how we got kicked out because they gave George a gun. This was again in the early 80s when the BSA was suffering through a bunch of high profile molestation cases anyhow, so they decided the press wasn’t worth it and instead George’s big smiling mug was photographed and hung on a post near where the range workers worked with a big reminder note not to give him any guns.
I went to the gun range with some work friends a few years back and one of the guys brought an Astra A75.
The Astra magazine was marked 40sw on one side and 9mm on the other so we assume it was a 9mm simply because that was the caliber we had brought with us. We started to send rounds down range and of the bat started to experience FTF but the gun never stopped firing. We must have used over 100 rounds this way before the owner decides to gift it to his buddy there with us pending the buddy would get it fix. As we were leaving the owner and the buddy asked the Gun Smith on hand how much it would cost to fix and after explaining what had went down and taking a quick look at the gun he simply said all it would take was the cost of the right ammo while pointing at the 40sw stamped on the barrel chamber.
And as the gentleman that this individuals are there was no take backs.
You guys are actually really lucky no one got hurt. One of the biggest dangers with 12 Gauge shotguns is people accidentally including a 20 gauge shell to the mix. Instead of firing, often the 20 guage shell will simply get tossed down the barrell and logged, then if you are not paying attention and load a 12 gauge round after it and fire it, really bad things happen.
I have never heard of this happening with other rounds, but most people know what rounds the gun shoots and no two rounds are as easy to missidentify as 12 and 20 gauge. But it seems like with what you guys were doing, you could have easily had the same thing happen.
My uncle shot himself in the leg with his 22 pocket pistol. His hand was in his pocket. Yes, I do believe that for some idiotic reason he pulled the trigger.
This isn’t the stupidest but the funniest thing that I ever saw was this big 400 pounder.
Looked like hurly from Lost was at the skeet throwers at the local range with a sawed off 870 trying to shoot skeet. this shotgun had a sawed off pistol grip and a short barrel, probably an AOW. But he was trying to shoot skeet with this thing that was too small and his own size ment that he had to hold it about 2 feet offset to one side.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a far, far away land there was a serviceman… lets call him Trebor, Treb for short. Treb was a jackass. Not just an ordinary jackass, but a very experienced, hardened jackass.
One day an Admiral, through his own arrogance and stupidity, caused Treb and his crew so much additional work that they couldn’t get liberty for 4 solid weeks. This caused Treb and his crew to miss a long planned (and already paid for) trip and concert. Treb and his crew grew wroth and swore to teach this tyrant a lesson!
Time passed, and their anger faded away to be nearly forgotten. Then the Admiral brought his pride and joy, a 40′ (roughly) single-masted little sailing craft into the harbor for an informal race with several of his compatriots.
The night before the race Treb and crew were drinking (heavily) and commiserating with each other when a “brilliant” idea was brought forth. It was discussed, modified, voted on and decided in favor without dissent. Tomorrow the hated Admiral would pay!
The story picks up at o’dark-thirty. Treb and his crew (still not sober) were gathered in an empty shipping container on the commercial docks. As it was Sunday there were no workers on the docks except the rent-a-cops at the dockside entrance. This container’s open side faced out over the harbor which was the starting point for the unofficial race. Treb’s crew’s view was angled about 40° off the path.
The boats gathered to the left and out of view from inside the container and would pass left to right in front of the container before tacking port (left) and running out of the harbor on the first leg of the race. The Admiral’s boat was 3rd in line.
Inside the container Treb’s people had set up a match-grade .308 with a 10-20x scope on a bipod. Treb, at the time, was considered an excellent shot. He would strike the fateful blow.
The race began, and at 90 second intervals the boats began the course. When the 3rd boat came into view everyone held their breath as a still somewhat inebriated Trebor fired. A clean miss. So far off that no one had even noticed the shot. Trebor had only more chance. He steadied down…and fired!
A perfect shot from 300 yards at an impossible target. A direct hit on the pulley at the top of the mast. The pulley which held the ropes which supported and controlled the mainsail…
The sail dropped to the deck. The Admiral began screaming invective. Treb and his crew suddenly sobered up and realized that what they had just done was not only incredibly dangerous and stupid, but also criminal, and worst of all, should they be caught they would be facing the Admiral at a General Court and potentially decades in military prison.
They were lucky. No one was injured. The shot had carried away the pulley and all evidence, and apparently no one knew what had happened. They were idiots, their stray shot could easily have killed someone. The succesfiul shot could have killed someone. Don’t try this at home. They were not experts, they were were screw-ups who were incredibly fortunate not be convicted felons. Now the Admiral has passed and the staute of limitations has expired and the last of the crew have retired. Now the story can be told.
nice shot
I was enjoying a night out with theguys while in college. We were at one friend’s house getting ready to watch a movie and eating some late night snacks. The friend who lived there was showing me a new 1911 he just bought. During our talk, one of the guys mentioned that growing up in Sacramento he never had seen a gun in real life. The other friend decided to educate him.
The talk was pretty standard. The magazine was removed and the slide was racked back to show it was unloaded. The magazine was loaded. The various safeties were demonstrated. The standard rules were discussed – do not touch the trigger. Do not point the firearm at anything you don’t want to destroy. At about this time, I had lost interest and began watching the movie.
While I was engaged in watching, the gun owner went to the kitchen to get something. In just a few moments, the Sacramento kid had released the slide, put the magazine in (fortunately it wasn’t the reverse or I wouldn’t be here) – he pointed it at me. I felt a weird tickle on the back of my neck and looked up just in time to hear the hammer fall.
The gun owner returned from the kitchen in time to see him dry fire at my head. He roared, marched over, ripped the gun from the kid’s hands and looked like he was about to pistol whip him. He decided against it, and told him that he didn’t deserve a human name and from that point on, at the college he was only referred to as “that guy” or “the guy”
I didn’t soil myself. But a .45 barrel looks mighty huge and that hammer fall is awfully loud when you’re facing it down.
I went to the range with a buddy of mine and he asked if he could bring this 9mm pistol his dad had in his safe. So of course I said sure because the more the merrier and this would keep him from mooching off my ammo the way he usually does because I didn’t have a 9 at the time. After we get everything set up and start shooting he is having nothing but trouble with this gun, FTF/FTE like every round. I don’t think he made it through 2 rounds without a malfunction. I asked if he needed any help and he said “no I’ve got this” Since I was helping his brother at the time who was a total non shooter I figured fine whatever. Eventually he gets fed up and switches to his .22 pistol and rifle and finishes the range trip like that. After we get back to his house I ask to check the pistol figuring its either got zero lube on it from being in a safe forever or something common like that. I look at the side of the gun and it was a 9mm Largo, when I told him this his response ” yeah but its a 9mm”
This is the same guy who also thought he could load .380 acp into his .38 super 1911 because he read it somewhere online. Needless to say I don’t go to the range with him anymore.
Okay, I know FPSRussia does some really unsafe things with his guns, but I have to laugh in spite of myself. That Glock on full auto with incendiary rounds was kick ass.
Indeed.
My buddy played college football and had a team mate who owned some land we could shoot on. Some of us went out with the guy and were having a grand ole time, when the land owner decides it would be fun to duel wield 1911s and empty the mags as fast as he could. Needless to say, he could not keep them under control and ended up having the one in his left hand get so close to his face that the slide came back and hit him right below his eye. Once he stopped bleeding he said he finally understood why duel wielding only works in video games.
At least he didn’t try adding a John Woo dive to the maneuver.
Sitting at an outside table in a bar in Mexico City. The federal Mexican police were out in force, surrounding our hotel across the street, because some official dignitary from another country and his motorcade were pulling in.
We were drinking tequila, enjoying the sights, when a native comes up to us with a bag of novelty lighters for sale. One, was shaped like a small .380 pistol. When you pulled the trigger 1/2 way, a laser came from the muzzle. When you pulled it all the way, a cigarette flame.
My inebriated cohort, grabbed the lighter, and painted a laser on to the vest of one of the Mexican troopers. I dived under the table, with a few other classmates, and yelled for him to put it down. And I never went drinking at an outside bar with him the rest of the trip.
An idiot high school friend was showing off how he could shove his fingers inside a Browning Hi Power’s magazine well and bypass the magazine safety, with a round in the chamber. He blew up his parent’s wide screen tv.
The instructor in my concealed carry class loaded a magazine full with 380 and couldn’t figure out why it would fire but not feed in my 9mm Glock.
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