12Sept05

NDs

A student experienced an ND in his motel room recently. The single, errant

bullet penetrated to an outside wall and impacted into a hill behind the motel. Fortunately, it resulted in property damage only, along with a larg e dose of embarrassment.

The accident occurred at the end of a long and exhausting day of shooting.

The student was tired. He took his backup pistol out of its holster and began to unload it, then became distracted by a news bulletin on TV. When he " dry-fired," the pistol unexpectedly discharged.

This kind of accident can happen to anybody, and those of us who carry and handle guns regularly needn't think ourselves exempt! The two causative factors, operating simultaneously are always:

Fatigue, and Distraction.

Sometimes, we're just too tired to be handing guns! This student to ld me later that he had decided to wait until morning to continue with maintenance , but then changed his mind.

When loading, unloading, performing a chamber check, and performing user-level maintenance, we need to have an attention span sufficient to comp lete the process. Interruptions will provide the deadly catalyst! As with parallel

parking a car, handling guns requires that we pay full attention to what we 're doing throughout the procedure.

Finally, I recommend to all my students who carry guns to own and use a Saf e Direction gun bag. Safe Direction is not designed to prevent accidents. I t is designed to limit the damage. It is a containment system that will stop

and contain a errant pistol bullet fired unintentionally during administrative gun-handling processes. All serious gun owners should have a copy.

Every time you touch a gun, you are presented with yet another chance to have an accident. Be alert. Follow the correct procedure without interruptions. Use a Safe Direction bag. The consequences of your errant bullet causing injury are too grievous to do less.

/John