Reply #26: It's a controversial theory I have [View All]

[guntard]

See, I simply do not believe anyone can shoot himself while "cleaning his gun," unless he is very drunk. It's like putting a convertible through a car wash with the top down: it's not done, the very first thing you do is put up the top.

The VERY FIRST THING anyone does to clean a gun is clear the chamber. You can't get very far in gun-cleaning without doing that. Even if you are a dumbass and your preferred method of clearing the chamber is pulling the trigger, how many people do this while pointing the gun at themselves? Pulling the trigger while pointing the gun at yourself is actually slightly difficult, it's not something that happens accidentally.

Now, I guess it is easy for people who know nothing about guns to believe they are hideously dangerous objects and that anyone can be accidentally killed simply by handling one in any manner whatsoever.

But as an experienced shooter and collector, I simply cannot imagine how anyone can accidentally shoot himself while cleaning his gun.

So I do believe that almost all such accidents aren't accidental at all, but were reported as such to spare the feelings of survivors, and maybe to assist with the insurance. I bet this happens a lot more often in small towns, where the first responders often know the victims, than in big, anonymous cities.

Shitty situation, but this sort of 'accident' is hard to quantify numbers, if it is in fact, happening. That moves bodies from the suicides column to the accidental deaths column.

Yes, and given the officially compiled firearm accidental fatality figure is fewer than 1,000 annually, a vanishingly small rate in a population of 300 million, if my theory is correct the real fatal accident rate might be statistically insignificant.