A simple device could help curb accidental gun deaths, but most firearms don’t have it
A simple device could help curb accidental gun deaths, but most firearms don’t have it
At least 277 people have been killed since 2000 by shooters who believed the gun in their hands was unloaded because the magazine was removed.
One of the things I have decided to do is check the chamber every time the weapon enters or leaves my hand. Pulling it out of the lockbox? Check the chamber. Handing it to a friend? Check the chamber. Setting it down at the range after emptying a magazine and the slide is now locked open on an empty mag? Check the chamber. Picking it up at the range after reloading the magazine? Check the chamber.
Between this and pressing the "turn signal off" button on my motorcycle every time I go through an intersection, I am slightly less stupid.
Wait, what? How is this not normal practice? I'm Norwegian, don't own a gun, but I started shooting at the local gun range when I was 12. First thing we were thought was to ALWAYS check the chamber when a gun entered or left your hand. It was the same in the military.
I own a start gun, and even though it's been in my costume box, and I'm out of bullets, I check the chamber. Ever fucking time. My friend said I was dumb that I did it that way - I told him gun safety is no joke, and continue checking the chamber for a start gun.
Because this is absolutely what you should do, and you should still handle it like it was loaded even after doing this.
This should be everyone's practice, every single time. Good on you for making the commitment to doing this. This is what I do as well, I'm a bit OCD about it.
I'm also a bit OCD about turning off my motorcycle blinker as well, lol.
Beyond that just always constantly without fail treat every gun as if it were loaded. Never point one at anything you don't want to shoot, period. That is the safest way to handle firearms.
Well there also is proper fucking training.
Always assume a weapon is loaded if you haven't checked the chamber. Even then make sure you point the barrel in a safe direction.
- Treat every firearm as if it is loaded
- Never point your gun at something you are not willing to destroy
- Always know your target and what is behind it
- Never put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
Did I miss any? 🤔
Edit: Typo.
Always assume a weapon is loaded if you haven’t checked the chamber.
Always assume a weapon is loaded. Period. Even if you've checked the chamber. You can be mistaken on what you see, especially if you're tired or not paying attention.
When I was in Iraq one of the guys in my unit had a negligent discharge. He swore he checked the chamber for a round. My guess is he halfway racked the slide and thought he saw the side of the chamber when he really saw dirty brass. Luckily he fired into the clearing barrel but you don't want an ND ever.
Your eyes and brain can lie to you. Don't trust them.
But with the blast shield down I can't see anything!
I realize any sort of regulation whatsoever is anathema to a lot of people who own guns, but I really think we would cut down on gun deaths by a huge margin if you were required to take a gun safety class before you could buy a gun. I'm sure you could give a basic overview of gun safety with one short class and it would be enough to stop a great many accidental deaths.
I think the point here is that anyone without training can pick up someone else's firearm and fire it believing that it's empty when it's not. A child wouldn't necessarily know that there's still a bullet in the chamber.
Edit: Apparently, I said something unpopular.
Say fuck say beer say gun say fuck kilometre!!!! USA usa usa usa
If someone doesn't know removing the magazine doesnt un chamber a round then guns should be locked away from them.
If they've only ever unloaded a full magazine or shot with a magazine with a single shot in it, they wouldn't know since the gun will be empty after they are done firing and drop the magazine.
Proper supervision and training is the way to prevent negligent discharges.
I have a hard time believing the Marine's example. I've been in the military, and I was trained to ALWAYS do an eject when pulling out a magazine. It becomes a reflex. Also, it's drilled into your brain that a gun, unless extracted, is by default loaded. Basic gun training.
counter argument: revolvers exist and when the revolving thing is removed it is both obvious and has no bullets in a chamber.
That would be similar to a pistol having its slide locked in the back position, in fact those are the only ways you're supposed to leave guns when you need to put them down when you're at the firing range. Slide in a locked position or the cylinder removed so people can see from a glance the gun cannot fire. My local range has fluorescent weed wacker twine we put down the barrels for really easy visual identification.
how the fuck does anyone have a magazine-fed gun and not know that removing the magazine doesn't unload the chamber
that's fucking scary
that said, seems like a no-brainer to mandate this magazine disconnect mechanism
how the fuck does anyone have a magazine-fed gun and not know that removing the magazine doesn't unload the chamber
A child who finds a firearm in an unlocked safe that the parent thought was locked may not know. Or many other scenarios.
Yeah definitely true and a good reason for the mechanism to exist.
Just, wow, some of the anecdotes in the article.
ITT: people absolutely refuse to accept that accidents happen—even to smart people—and the consequences can be mitigated through non-knowledge-based precautions.
I refuse to keep a round just stored in the chamber. In fact, I think it is incredibly stupid and irresponsible to do so. But, like, just put a fucking magazine disconnect in there too, just in case I make a mistake eventually.
What a non-story. Idiots do idiot things like not rack a slide and safe a weapon, then point it at someone and pull the trigger. Holy fuck.
Then we give them driver's licenses.
What a non-story.
These 277 deaths could have been prevented with magazine disconnects. Not a non-story.
So in that same period of time, 810 people died from being hit by lightning. Maybe we need to mandate people walk around with grounding straps on their clothing and all doors automatically lock people in if it's raining.
If you feel like pearl clutching some more, maybe worry about how many gun owners don't have gun safes. I guarantee, that's responsible for far more deaths than idiots that can't safe a firearm.
If you own a gun and keep it in your home, should you and everyone in that home actually know how to properly handle a weapon, should the weapon be stored safely away from children?
Yes, of course, obviously.
But the article does a great job of cataloguing situations where either some or all of that didn't occur, or someone just made a stupid, fatal mistake.
They were all instances where a fairly simple, well understood mechanical feature in firearms, a magazine disconnect, would have prevented those deaths.
... Some months back I got a bit of flack on a thread where some semi popular tiktoker game-overed himself by 'performing' to a song by pantomiming shooting himself in the head with his handgun.
He didn't drop out the mag, he didn't rack the slide, he apparently even could be seen switching the safety off.
I called him a Darwin Award winner, as, to me, someone with some actual firearms experience and training, this is a laughably stupid thing to do.
Would a mag disconnect have saved that guy's life?
No, but that isn't the point.
The point is that basically, any idiot can buy a firearm, and in all but 9 states, there isn't any actual legal requirement that you be trained in how to properly use, store, maintain, carry, etc said firearm.
https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/training-required-to-purchase-guns/
In most of the country, you can legally buy and possess many kinds of firearms without going through the certification for a CC permit, as long as you follow the local laws that apply when you don't have one.
This is not comparable to cars and drivers liscenses.
You need a liscense, and some level of insurance, to drive a car legally.
If we are not universally legally mandating firearm handling and safety training for everyone who lives in a home with a gun in it, I really do not think it would be that onerous of a burden on weapons manufacturers to include mag disconnects on applicable weapons produced from say the point from which some law regulating this is passed.
It would save lives, and it would cost a tiny amount.
Looking at this situation and just remarking 'wow those people were all foolish and/or their parents were foolish' is coming from a perspective that just assumes people who own guns either do or should have proper training and follow the practices from that training.
The reality is that many do not, and in 41 states, they don't even have to.
(Please do not come at me with your action hero movie scenarios where for some reason you need to be able to load single rounds into a chamber without a magazine and fire a gun.)
In action movie hero scenarios, they are usually police, military, or some sort of special operator where such a device or safety would be counter intuitive. Real life has no such issues if you are a civilian. (I know ACAB, just setting the scene.)
In real life police are super dangerous with their guns because they are so careless.
the article does mention situations where police and military would see benefit from magazine disconnect, but obviously if the gun industry wants something, like to not install the disconnect, police and military will do whatever they can to make that happen
In general I feel less safe handling the guns I own with a magazine disconnect than the ones without. Having to put a magazine into the gun to drop the hammer puts me on edge every time.
Isn't that a good thing? You shouldn't feel comfortable casually dropping the hammer on a gun. You should be on alert and questioning whether or not you got all the bullets out before you released the hammer.
Why does that put you on edge? I don't understand at all how it could possibly be risky inserting a mag into an uncocked gun jist because it won't fire without a magazine installed.
277 deaths in 25 years. 11 people per year.
30% of Americans own guns.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
The population in 2000 was 282.2 million people, so roughly 84,660,000 gun owners.
11/84,660,000 = such a small number, you need to represent it with scientific notation. By 2024 it's even smaller. 11/100,470,000.
No piece of technology is going to prevent such an edge case of human stupidity, if it weren't the magazine issue, it would be something else.
That being said, there's another preventative measure, my first gun had a little red pop-up when a round was in the chamber:
There was also a red marker if the safety was off:
It doesn't really matter if it's an edge case or not. 277 people died because of it, many children. That's not ok. I understand that people will go to great lengths to defend (often illogically) what they feel is their right, but your rights end where someone else's rights begin. 277 lives, even if it's over 25 years, is not worth an unsecured bullet in the chamber. It's not even worth one life.
277 people... over 25 years. It's statistically insignificant on a population of 300 million people.
By point of comparison:
"On average, about nine children under 5 years of age die every year from strangling in window blinds, shades, draperies and other window coverings with cords."
So 225 over 25 years. Again, not statistically significant.
This is amazing and such a duh duh feature. Completely mechanical and no different than the safety but automatic. It says not all manufacturers include it so it sounds like some might. It will definitely be something I will check to see if there is an option if I ever get a gun with a magazine. Which is sorta doubtful in my case. But cool to know the option is there. For anyone who did not read its just a mechanism such that if the magazine is removed the gun won't fire in case there is a round in the chamber.
Or, hear me out, even the most basic firearm safety being taught before selling someone a firearm.
Children sometimes pick up firearms from an unlocked safe that everyone thought was locked and an accident happens. There are lots of scenarios where the person having possession of the firearm would never have any safety training.
Children sometimes pick up firearms from an unlocked safe that everyone thought was locked and an accident happens.
In my area of the world, that alone right there is reckless and criminal. You are not winning this argument out side of the USA since the very idea of a firearm put away anywhere WITH A LIVE ROUND IN THE CHAMBER is pants on head insane let alone unlocked, unwatched, and in a place accessible by children.
The same line of reasoning gets weird since with the same level of "care" you could accidentally leave a loaded magazine the firearm, or more commonly be stored with live ammo near by. This is just another US invention to sell you a solution from responsibility.
Oh and I have only one firearm (a marlin 22) with this feature, it sucks. It is not safe, you can not use the fire arm without a magazine (silly). It has needed repair 4 times in 5 years (it has malfunctioned both in a way that stops the firearm working and one time in a way that made the bolt slam down when the magazine is inserted sometimes leading to a discharge).
In Canada we are taught a four step process in our mandatory gun safety courses:
- drop the magazine
- check the chamber
- check the feedpath
- check the barrel with light/pencil etc. Eyeball if that's the only option.
Yeah they're called gun safes
A gun safe wouldn't address the issue, did you read the article?
They are talking about negligent discharges caused by pulling the trigger on a gun without a magazine that had a round in the chamber and the gun doesn't have a magazine disconnect. They are advocating for magazine disconnects to be required on all firearms, which is the wrong way to go about addressing the issue.
Proper safe handling of a firearm is how you prevent negligent discharges, a safe will have no impact on the scenario they brought up.
Another thing no other country has issues with