The Liberal Gun Club Forum

MODESTO, CA (KOVR/CNN) - Parishioners at the House of Modesto Church are praying for one of their own pastors who is recovering after a frightening accident at a gun safety class that could have easily turned deadly.

Tom Smith, a family pastor who also helps with church security, was shot by his instructor during a gun safety class.

Modesto police said the two were acting out a scenario when a loaded gun the instructor was holding accidentally went off. The pastor was shot in the abdomen.

Police said the gun fired at the end of class, after the instructor put a mock gun down and picked up his real, loaded gun. They said so far it’s unclear if the instructor believed he was using the mock gun he had been using to teach the class.

“The church is praying for him, and the city is praying for him and his family,” said House of Modesto member Elijah Collins. “He’s very missed right now.”

Copyright 2015 KOVR via CNN. All rights reserved.

http://www.kmov.com/story/30753374/past ... fety-class

I hope his days as an instructor are done.

Gun classes -- wha! He was teaching them how not to handle a gun!

If I ever teach a class my first rule would be no live ammo in the classroom. This is before even the four major rules for handling a firearm.

I'm sure even with a rule like that, someone would still manage to shoot themselves or someone else....

we once used my 1911 for a local theater production. i showed everyone who handled it how to clear it, then for good measure removed the firing pin.

Every time you pick up a gun you must assume it is loaded. You find this out by checking it. Doofuses don't check their guns.

Don't be a doofus: a gun is always loaded.

CDFingers

Even when you check and think the gun is unloaded... the gun is always loaded.

This kind of idiocy is not as common as some fantasize. Hundreds of instructors in the US at all levels of firearm skills, teaching thousands of students per year. Shooting themselves or someone else is extremely rare (unless it makes it to youtube - then it's an "epidemic"). Probably similar occurrence rate to students getting hit by cars walking to and from class.

CDFingers wrote:Every time you pick up a gun you must assume it is loaded. You find this out by checking it. Doofuses don't check their guns.

Don't be a doofus: a gun is always loaded.

CDFingers

Reminds me of the telegram in "Swallows and Amazons" from Dad after being asked if they can go sailing on the lake, "Better drowned than duffers - if not duffers, won't drown."

Aren't there fully functional reproductions out there that can do everything but chamber a round?

They had a little gizmo in the military for when you are going through class. It looked a little like a C clamp and it had a screw that you plugged the barrel with on the M16.

Bacchus wrote:Even when you check and think the gun is unloaded... the gun is always loaded.

Thats pretty much what my dad taught me since I was old enough to know what words meant. Gun = Loaded .. no matter what .. treat it that way.

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:
They had a little gizmo in the military for when you are going through class. It looked a little like a C clamp and it had a screw that you plugged the barrel with on the M16.

That's a blank firing attachment (BFA) - it constricts gasses from blank rounds so the action can cycle normally without the backpressure created by bullets.

It WILL NOT keep you from chambering and firing a live round but since it blocks the muzzle, shit gets real interesting...

Best case, if the BFA is mounted correctly (clamped on from the bottom of the muzzle), it - and the bullet jammed into the rear end of it - get diverted enough to hit the ground (hard) a few yards in front of the shooter. Worst case, the gun blows up.

Military tends to be real diligent about keeping live and blank ammo separate.

This is one example of a BFA. That little thing won't stop a bullet moving at some 3000 fps...



You can't tell from the photo but to restrict (blank) gasses, it has a small center channel in the bolt that vents out through holes in the sides.

That is also why when you see automatic rifles in movies, the muzzle flash is most often star shaped, unlike real world shooting. On movie guns, the BFA is just a permanent restriction in the barrel instead of the big, bright muzzle attachment.

Yes, that's the gizmo. When we went through M16 orientation it had to stay on even though we didn't have any live ammo in the classroom. I always thought it was an extra safety measure. Didn't know it was for firing blanks.

Although our first range classes were done with ARs that were converted to 22LR until we could demonstrate that we could handle the rifle properly and hit the side of a barn. Then we graduated to the next level using an actual M16 and .223 ammo.

Air Force. What can I say.....

dandad wrote:

MODESTO, CA (KOVR/CNN) - Parishioners at the House of Modesto Church are praying for one of their own pastors who is recovering after a frightening accident at a gun safety class that could have easily turned deadly.

Tom Smith, a family pastor who also helps with church security, was shot by his instructor during a gun safety class.

Modesto police said the two were acting out a scenario when a loaded gun the instructor was holding accidentally went off. The pastor was shot in the abdomen.

Police said the gun fired at the end of class, after the instructor put a mock gun down and picked up his real, loaded gun. They said so far it’s unclear if the instructor believed he was using the mock gun he had been using to teach the class.

“The church is praying for him, and the city is praying for him and his family,” said House of Modesto member Elijah Collins. “He’s very missed right now.”

Copyright 2015 KOVR via CNN. All rights reserved.

http://www.kmov.com/story/30753374/past ... fety-class

Not an accident; guns firing by accident are rare.

This is why in the movies they mostly use rubber guns painted to look real and then edit in the flash and bang later.

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:Yes, that's the gizmo. When we went through M16 orientation it had to stay on even though we didn't have any live ammo in the classroom. I always thought it was an extra safety measure. Didn't know it was for firing blanks.

Although our first range classes were done with ARs that were converted to 22LR until we could demonstrate that we could handle the rifle properly and hit the side of a barn. Then we graduated to the next level using an actual M16 and .223 ammo.

Air Force. What can I say.....

I got pretty close to getting hit by a BFA with an actual bullet behind it once long time ago. When I first joined the Danish Army, we had H&K G3s which have a different design BFA. You screwed the flash hider off and screwed the BFA on instead, was just a red steel cylinder with the end closed and four small holes out the sides in an X pattern.

Somehow a live round had gotten mixed in with blanks leftover from a previous exercise and the dumbass who fired it didn't notice the obvious shape and weight difference of that round when he loaded his mags.

During an assault, there was a loud boom and the safety officers called a cease fire to figure out what happened. Turns out, that 7.62 bullet (hell of a lot more powerful than the 5.56) had just torn the BFA off and brought it along about 30 yards before hitting a brick wall that I had been taking cover behind seconds earlier. We were on the same side so the shot came from my back. Right about where my ass had just been, there was a fist sized crater in the brick...

The shooter was the only one hurt, he got a fragment of the muzzle thread in his eye but recovered eventually. Safety glasses weren't required back then.

Fun times...

bigstones wrote:

dandad wrote:

MODESTO, CA (KOVR/CNN) - Parishioners at the House of Modesto Church are praying for one of their own pastors who is recovering after a frightening accident at a gun safety class that could have easily turned deadly.

Tom Smith, a family pastor who also helps with church security, was shot by his instructor during a gun safety class.

Modesto police said the two were acting out a scenario when a loaded gun the instructor was holding accidentally went off. The pastor was shot in the abdomen.

Police said the gun fired at the end of class, after the instructor put a mock gun down and picked up his real, loaded gun. They said so far it’s unclear if the instructor believed he was using the mock gun he had been using to teach the class.

“The church is praying for him, and the city is praying for him and his family,” said House of Modesto member Elijah Collins. “He’s very missed right now.”

Copyright 2015 KOVR via CNN. All rights reserved.

http://www.kmov.com/story/30753374/past ... fety-class

Not an accident; guns firing by accident are rare.

This is why in the movies they mostly use rubber guns painted to look real and then edit in the flash and bang later.

Rick Grimes ain't got no rubber gun!

bigstones wrote:
This is why in the movies they mostly use rubber guns painted to look real and then edit in the flash and bang later.

trivia – While shooting an early episode, Henry Darrow (Manolito) fell from his horse and suffered a painful bruise when he landed very hard on the gun at his hip. After much pleading, he convinced the producers and the prop dept. to make a replica pistol out of rubber. Replaced by the real one only when it actually had to be fired, the fake gun remained in Manolito's holster for the rest of the show's run.

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:Yes, that's the gizmo. When we went through M16 orientation it had to stay on even though we didn't have any live ammo in the classroom. I always thought it was an extra safety measure. Didn't know it was for firing blanks.

Although our first range classes were done with ARs that were converted to 22LR until we could demonstrate that we could handle the rifle properly and hit the side of a barn. Then we graduated to the next level using an actual M16 and .223 ammo.

Air Force. What can I say.....

That must be why they don't start out pilot trainees right off the bat in F16s

That's gonna buff right out... not.