Or alternately titled "Let's start an impassioned argument early this week".
One of the things I find myself getting caught up in is the gunny tendency to come down harder on my own kind than probably is required. All of us seem to jump at the chance to cluck our tongues at other gunnies who have misfortunate events happen to them, generally in the realm of negligent discharges.
So far, the only thing I've seen that would qualify as a true accidental discharge from most of the people I read is a mechanical failure – say the sear shatters due to a vibration and the hammer goes forward and for some odd reason, everything lines up perfectly and the gun goes boom. Anything else is pretty much negligence on your part.
Or is it?
I'm not sure I really agree any more that everything can be safely wrapped up in the tsk-tsk tones of "You're negligent!" Just this weekend, I had to slam on the brakes to avoid running a red light. It was green when I looked at it, and then I did what I normally do while driving – check all around me to see what's going on. Call it driving in Condition Yellow, if you will.
During the time between checking left and right, the light changed. Had my wife not been in the car to yell at me, I'd have probably blown through it. Would that have been negligent? I don't think so because I was truly doing my best to pay attention to as many things as possible, there just happened to be something that, during the course of my observations, changed without my knowledge.
While my brain is an amazing computer capable of true multitasking, it has limits. For many things like driving, most of the mechanics behind it has to be stored in unconscious presets. I cannot consciously think about gauging the amount of force required to depress the gas pedal, rotating the steering wheel, hitting the turn signal, or the angles involved in a turn all at once and also pay attention to every object in my field of vision – some of that has to be relegated to 'just doing it'. And that is where true accidents come into play.
Occasionally, things don't happen exactly how the unconscious mind has prepared for them. A patch of sand in the road changes the car's ability to grip the road. The curb juts out more than normal. A child runs across the street. Your coffee lid comes off and you Caleb yourself.
All of these items could be avoided if you happened to pay attention to them, or were well versed in dealing with that situation, but when they happen, I don't see car enthusiast jump all over people and yell 'NEGLIGENCE!'.
I understand the need for gun owners to hammer on safety. But I wonder if we go too far with our impossible standards of what's an accident versus true negligence. Operating a gun can often become like driving a car or using a table saw – after a while, many of the actions you do become automatic. And in those times, even the most cautious of us can have things happen.
Yes, as gun owners we should always stress about safety, yes we should do everything in our power to instill the 4 rules into ourselves. Because accidental or not, we are still responsible for what happens with our bullets just like we are responsible for what happens with our cars. I just wonder if we're all a little hypersensitive on the accidental vs negligent discharge thing.
Your thoughts?
Because accidental or not, we are still responsible for what happens with our bullets just like we are responsible for what happens with our cars.
What is the point in classifying something as an "accident" rather than "negligence" if not to say "it wasn't my fault...it was just an accident?" The Navy, years ago, stopped using the term "accident" in reference to Naval Aviation incidents. They have, for a long time, been referred to as "mishaps". They did this for the very reason that the term "accident" invokes the image of something unpreventable, that was just blind luck, happenstance, or fate.
accident (noun) 1. an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap: 3. any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause.
negligent (adjective) 1. guilty of or characterized by neglect, as of duty: 2. lazily careless; offhand: