Monday, November 14, 2011

A tragic handgun accident

Update: The man was carriygn the gun loose in his waistband.




Liz Scott said the victim was in the driver’s seat of a minivan when he apparently went to unbuckle his seat belt and hit the trigger of a Glock 40-caliber handgun. A bullet was fired into the victim’s hip. He looked at his wife, who had already returned to the van, and said, “I just shot myself.”
There has to be more to this story, but my heart goes out to the family of this man, who did not survive. The store in question is where we grocery shop, so I'm a little apprehensive to hear the name of the man that lost his life; there's a good chance I may have known him.

There is only one account that I know of a gun firing in a holster where the owner was not handling the gun, but it is very very rare that it happens that way. Usually the owner has the gun out of the holster, and a finger or foreign object finds its way into the trigger guard, which is exactly the conclusion that I came to when my wife read this article to me last night. It's not known at this time whether the gun was in a hip holster, or whether it was in a pocket holster. It does sound to me like the femoral artery was hit, which is why there are some who do not carry over their appendix. I've never thought that it matters much where you have your gun holstered if you have a AD/ND, anywhere can cause a fatality.

5 comments:

Drew said...

a friends older brother once ND'd into his hip while fidgeting with his .45 in the seated position next to her on the couch. 1911 of some sort, anyway he turned out to be fine but the FMJ round stayed in his hip socket solid. hate to explain that one at the airport.

Unknown said...

Yet another example of why I think AIWB is good to go. I do get the idea that shooting yourself in the thigh is bad because of the artery, but a round striking a hip bone can easily do the same thing. Your friend's brother is a lucky man!

Broken Andy said...

Something sounds off to how the ND occurred. Anyway, the comments on the story show that Fredericksburg is gun country... a lot of firearms knowledge in those comments.

MSgt B said...

Couldn't have happened.

The Austrian Face Grenade has a "Safety Trigger"

Unknown said...

The knowledgeable gun folk are correcting the crazy people in the comments. Some of the stuff people are saying are scary. You can pick out the ones who are gun-ignorant, as they're the ones talking about putting the Glock's safety on.