Mas Ayoob has an ND during a training class

[OhioGuy]

This is why people with cocky attitudes make me nervous. Yes, it can happen to ANYONE.

And clearly, someone needs to ban Assault Revolvers.

[Sharkbite]

any semiauto should have some sort of tactile loaded chamber indicator, and I don't consider a little peep hole to be adequate.

DONT TRUST THOSE!! Ive seen em stick out with no round in the chamber and lay flush with a round in the chamber.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, by incorporating a tactile check, I mean stick your fingers in the chamber and feel around if possible. For example, on a Hi-Power I’ll grip the slide overhand with my offhand and stick my pinky through the ejection port.

The first thing I am feeling for is a cartridge on the extractor, then the presence of a magazine, then I’ll swipe up the feed ramp and feel the chamber. However, anything that slows your brain down and makes you actually look is helpful.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by 1-DAB

Up is not a safe direction.

from his own words: "the least unsafe direction"

that's still unsafe.

fail.

To me this shows a lack of consideration for the real world. When we are out in the world it's not usual to be surrounded by berms. The firearm by simply existing has to be pointed in some direction. Often that means choosing the direction least likely to result in damage to people and property. When I am in my home I use a high ready or temple index. I have dogs and now a kid. Down is not safe around them, and on upper floors it certainly isn't safe for people below me. Pointed out to the side is certainly not safe for the homes in eyesight. This leaves me and many others with up. Is it ideal? No, but the ideal is not available to me and often isn't. I choose the direction least likely to result in injury and property damage. This is what we all should do, and what Ayoob did. If you think there is a direction that is constantly safe, then I argue you haven't thought this through.

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[pax]

For those who wonder how a person can fail to see a live round in a revolver, there's this nifty little visual aid I cooked up some time ago.

First, the 'unloaded' revolver. Quick glance. Is it empty?



Now, the surprise. Same gun, a second after the first picture was taken.



For the record, the pictures do not cheat. The gun in the first picture is just as loaded as the one in the second picture; all that changed was a slight tilt to the cylinder.

This is why we look twice, and count the holes by feeling them with a fingertip.

Important! No matter what your dad, uncle, or grandad might've taught you, do not simply count the rounds in your hand and call it good. Instead, count the empty spots in the cylinder. Do this because the status of the gun is the thing that matters, not the state of the ammo in your hand.

In my files I have not one, but two different accounts of people who dumped the rounds into their hands and counted them -- and somehow forgot about a loose round they were already holding which made their count inaccurate. While I know and you know this couldn't happen to either of us ... it did happen to those folks and it could happen again.

This also takes care of situations like the following story that I found online a few years ago: "I went to load up, unlatched the cylinder, and there was a cartridge still in there!” https://www.thehighroad.org/index.ph....253509/page-2 post #29

When a person has gotten in the habit of trusting a round count for the gun's unloaded status, they would likely miss the unexpected round when they go to check a gun that they "know" is unloaded -- because there are no rounds to count. So it's better to build a habit of really checking the gun.

Look at the thing that you absolutely need to be sure of -- the gun itself. Check its status thoroughly by sight, then check again by feel.

pax

[TheOmordha]

PAX, Thank you for an excellent posting on clearing the revolver. The tilt angle is clearly what all four of the folks in the OP discussed. I think the tilt is as critical as any of the other firearm safety mantras.


Perhaps this is the time for All to remember that this is a Me Too for us. We have all been around or heard about ND or AD. We are all self style safety conscious folks. And yet this continues.

Mas Ayoob is to be commending for telling the truth as are all the posters in TFL and beyond.

Complacency. Causes us to dismiss or forget or just not see. In the field, in class or in life. Catch yourself doing this and stop it. Save a life. Anti-Gunners love these stories.

Every firearm is loaded. Always check it no matter what. Take every single violation very seriously. I am intolerant of this when I receive an action. I check it again after it has been checked. I am sure all of you do.

Always point down range or where no one can be hit, even if it is unloaded and cleared. Folks who sell guns and allow unsafe actions with guns are to be avoided. I leave when I see this.


Separate the firearm from the ammunition. Pocketing it, holding in the hand allows too many possible bad things to happen.


Guns are too important and dangerous to allow any errors to happen. Condoning any deviations is also wrong.

[fastbolt]

Salute to Mas. We're privileged Mas was unabashedly willing to publicly use his own example to remind us of our human fallibility.

The big culprit – on my part, certainly – was “the look that doesn’t see.” Closely associated with complacency, it happens when you’ve looked for something dangerous countless thousands of times and seen nothing there, programming your brain to see nothing there when something is.

Absolutely. The "look that doesn't see" is something of which we ALL must remain cognizant.

We neither wish to see something that isn't there, nor do we wish to not see something that is there. Not if the results of our "look" is going to be helpful. We must always strive to make sure our attention let's us see what is there to be seen, recognize it for what it is, and then act upon it in an appropriate manner.

As an instructor, it's easy to be running that "teacher talking to students" part of your mind while you're also keeping your own "personal/safety adherence" part of your mind running on a parallel track. In most cases they reinforce each other, or ought to, at any rate. It's recognizing when sudden attention and emphasis to the "personal safety track" needs to immediately supersede attention to the "teaching/talking" that's the trick.

Bottom line? It's better to have a stutter step occur in the "teacher" dialogue sound track, than in the adherence to "personal safety practices" attention, but it's oh-so-easy to allow yourself to become distracted by what's happening in your "teacher" mode at a critical moment.

I can remember watching another instructor helping a shooter with a reported problem using an agency AR. The instructor took the AR off the line to check it further, but for some reason waited until he was in a shadowed spot to perform his own safety inspection prior to a closer examination to try and diagnose the reported issue. The safety check was insufficient to allow him to see the dull brass casehead down within the barrel's chamber. For whatever reason, he decided to press the trigger after the BCG was allowed to run forward (instead of breaking it down with the hammer back). The predictably loud noise, and a nice chipped spot in the concrete walkway, were the result. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

Complacency. Not seeing what's there to be seen. (And in the case of that instructor, not using a small light to let him SEE into the chamber well enough to actually confirm it was clear, and not checking by feel.) Now, checking an AR's chamber by feel does present some potential risk and requires caution, because if the BCG is released and/or bumped free and runs forward with your pinky in it, the pain can be substantial. I once watched a large fellow doing a hyper frenetic version the Watusi, loudly yelling, as an AR was hanging off the end of one hand, with his pinky firmly caught in the ejection port. Wow. Better than a stray round finding someone, though.

Let's listen and learn from that mistake acknowledged by Mas.

The more and longer we handle firearms, the more important it becomes. Increased and longer exposure to handling means an increased and longer exposure to the opportunity to make a mistake.

The "layered" approach to safety (muzzle control) is also the ultimate fail-safe to try and make sure the possible mistake which might result in a ND doesn't result in the bullet hitting something - or someone - we didn't intend to shoot.

Damn, right?

[jmorris]

This is why most gun games use the triple redundant safety procedures.

Step #1 (drop the mag &) unload the gun and look into the chamber to confirm that it is unloaded.

Step #2 Show the unloaded chamber to the RO, just in case you didn’t do your job in step #1.

Step #3 Aim the firearm in a safe direction towards the berm/backstop and drop the hammer/striker onto the (supposed to be) empty chamber, just in case you didn’t do your job in step #1 and the RO didn’t do their job in step #2.

If you both messed up, the gun goes “bang” and everyone looks surprised but you are not walking around with a loaded gun that everyone, including you think is unloaded.

Over the years of competitive shooting I have seen a number of “unloaded” guns fire at step #3.

You are never too old to become complacent....

[SIGSHR]

The style of grips makes a big difference. I find snaps caps tend to catch on Pachmayrs.

[fastbolt]

Originally Posted by jmorris

...

You are never too old to become complacent....

Nice. I'm stealing that.

[gwpercle]

And...You can't be too careful !
Keep those unloaded guns pointed in a safe direction, it's not the loaded ones that surprise you...it's them unloaded gun's that keep going off unintended.

Guns are like cars , drive long enough and you will be involved in an accident...shoot long enough and you will have an unintended. Pointed in a safe direction saved the day.
I will admit to having two. The first went into the wood floor , the second went into the ceiling... I had them pointed in a safe direction. About 40 years apart too .
It's perfectly fine to be both anal and OCD when it comes to gun safety.

Gary

[Dufus]

I have never had one.

I was next to two different people at two different times when they had an AD.

The first one was the "look but don't see" thing. Model 70 Winchester 30-06 went thru the roof.

They second was one of those "I don't know what I am doing" moments. Just before, he made the comment "I don't know if this damn thing is loaded or not and I don't know how to tell". Then BOOM. We checked by pulling the trigger.
That one was a S&W 357 in a small room. Went thru 2 walls and lodged into a dresser in the adjacent room. I was deaf from that one for prolly a good 5 minutes.

No one got hurt in either incident, but they sure could have.

[Lohman446]

We learn from mistakes. If no one is hurt and no one plays CYA we can learn a good many valuable lessons.

[briandg]

any semiauto should have some sort of tactile loaded chamber indicator, and I don't consider a little peep hole to be adequate.

DONT TRUST THOSE!! Ive seen em stick out with no round in the chamber and lay flush with a round in the chamber.

Of course you shouldn't trust them entirely. You see, this all ties in together. A tactile loaded chamber indicator is just another step. I can sweep my index finger up the slide of my glock and know that the indicator is out. Meaningless, obviously, there are risks in assuming that that chamber is empty, and we are supposed to assume that it is loaded anyway. Counting rounds, empty holes, counting as you shoot, there is NOTHING like looking carefully in chamber and magazine or cylinder, and then still treating it like it's loaded.

When I am out shooting, out at the range, even at the table, I still check the chamber before I aim and fire. Heck, it may have been several minutes since I dropped the slide and chambered a round, but I still check the chamber before I fire. There isn't anything much more embarrassing than dry firing the first round with people watching, I guess.

So, redundancy, redundancy, and checking over and over until you get so tired of redundancy that you cut the word out of the dictionary.

I say that I always do all of these things, but I should say always intend to. If I forget that last second check, the worst that happens is I'm left standing there after that 'click' that everyone hears.

I was with my nephew, letting him see my shotgun. three times in a row, I threw it up at the target, and didn't push off the safety as I did. There I was, swinging at a target and saying bad words. I just handed it to him and said that I'd had enough.

Brain tumor. It can cause things to happen. sometimes I find myself quite disoriented, and that is dangerous. I try to use every step possible. I quit reloading for a couple of years and did very little shooting. The fact that my range is remote and I didn't want to be so isolated was also a concern. So I try to use every level of redundancy possible.

Frankly, the last time I went, I had knelt down for my brass, and when I stood up my knee gave out. I wound up scrambling backwards in the gravel until I went on my back. I tried to stand, and wound up going down again onto my face. Of course, not a soul around, and stupid me, my phone was on the bench.

But my gun was empty and locked and on the bench as well, so there was absolutely no chance for a negligent discharge when I went splat.

Stupidity and evil are similar, in that there is no lowest limit to which one can aspire.

There's also that old cliche that you can never be too rich or handsome.

you can never be too careful, and just because you never heard it as a rule, you can still make up your own rules as you go along. I like the bright orange magazine followers that I have seen. Those are a great way to know that your pistol probably doesn't have a round in it when you drop your slide.

[Wagonman]

Mas is human, move on.

[mete]

Style of grips ? I remember in the early days of Dan Wesson that their 'combat ' grips would hang up a round if the cylinder was positioned a certain way !!

[Elkins45]

I find the “nickel case in a stainless revolver” excuse ludicrous.

I think it was intended as an explanation more than an excuse.

This is a demonstration of percentages: someone like Ayoob handles guns on an almost daily basis. The more often you do something the more chances you have to do it wrong. Gun handling is one of those things where a 100% success rate is considered normal, and 99.9% might kill someone. I don’t handle guns nearly as much as Ayoob does and there is a hole in my shed where I “dry fired” my 1076 one afternoon.

No virtue signaling here.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

If you know something about human error - failure to see or inattentional blindness is a common cause of accidents in many domains. It is not an excuse but an explanation as pointed out. I've been an expert in cases where folks ran into stopped semis.

Like I said, it may happen to all of us despite declaring that you are the God of the Four Rules. It happened to Jeff Cooper twice.

[shafter]

Even experts make mistakes. Mistakes happen in all areas of life. Thankfully no one died.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

If you know something about human error - failure to see or inattentional blindness is a common cause of accidents in many domains. It is not an excuse but an explanation as pointed out. I've been an expert in cases where folks ran into stopped semis.

Like I said, it may happen to all of us despite declaring that you are the God of the Four Rules. It happened to Jeff Cooper twice.

To me people forget that the 4 rules exist as layered security. You can break one rule and have an unfortunate day, but not a life threatening one. It's when you break multiple rules that you have a problem.

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[K_Mac]

any semiauto should have some sort of tactile loaded chamber indicator, and I don't consider a little peep hole to be adequate.

Brian I am a fan of tactile loaded chamber indicators and I like being able to verify a weapon is loaded by using one, even in the dark. That does not mean I think they should be required on all semiautomatic weapons or that they are any guarantee to prevent a negligent discharge. We are all susceptible to this whether we admit it or not.

[Brit]

Well the reason you all missed, Mas is old you know! My Gen4 Glock 19 is never unloaded, except! Trips to babysit, Boy 5 Girl 7.

Prior to entering my Sons huge home, live round comes out of the chamber, pull the trigger on unloaded pistol "CLICK" reinsert now 14 round magazine, reholster.

Going home, rack slide, holster. Before hitting sheets, reinsert round into 14 full magazine (I have to use the little helper from Glock, my thumb's not strong enough to push the last round in (Old you know!) Gun on the bedside table, nite-nite.

Reference ND I once killed a mattress, with one round from a Steyr AUG! No, the bed was not occupied! Concrete apartment floor.

Mas wish me Happy Aniversary!! 25 of them today. Still just as happy as the day that happened.

[Jeff22]

Twice, years ago, I saw people with stainless steel revolvers miss a round with a nickel plated cartridge case when they were clearing revolvers after completing a course of fire.

The first time was at an IPSC match (back before there was a USPSA, so it was in the early 80s) and the second time was a student at the police academy in 1988 or 89.

In both cases, the RO supervising the clearing of the weapon noticed the problem and corrected the problem and there was no bad result.